The State of the Ascians (Assume Spoilers as of TODAY)

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

Oh, the WoL doesn't sacrifice other people! No, we sacrifice ourselves!

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WoL is still alive, you might have noticed.

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And are then shocked when those other people we were helping out also sacrifice themselves for us. We never have asked anyone to save us. Not Minfillia, not Moenbryda, not Harchefaut, not Yasale,

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Here's the difference - Those people all died for us. All WoL "sacrifices" is time and energy, and even then we see that a part of him despises too much self-sacrifice on his part. When those people give their lives for you, they're not following your example, because your example is to win without dying for it.
Also all of those people were before 3.2 and 3.3 where you resolve not to let that happen again. The doomed future is arguable because A. it's not like WoL was there to stop it and B. time shenanigans makes it so that didn't happen to begin with.

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The truth of the matter is, sometimes we are the "other person" whose problems someone else is solving. And denying people their right to chose to sacrifice themselves would make us the biggest hypocrite of all.

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Okay, then you are a hypocrite, because you do exactly that with Estinien.

Look, in this patch we literally beat down the incarnation of self-sacrifice. WoL does not stand for that ideal. Azem wouldn't accept that then, and you don't accept that now. And I think WoL should take major issue with Hydaelyn coercing people to give up their lives to fight for her in a war they don't understand. People have been laying down their lives for her for thousands of years without really knowing why, or who they're really on the side of. That's not an acceptable status quo to just propagate into the future.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

Look, in this patch we literally beat down the incarnation of self-sacrifice. WoL does not stand for that ideal. Azem wouldn't accept that then, and you don't accept that now. And I think WoL should take major issue with Hydaelyn coercing people to give up their lives to fight for her in a war they don't understand. People have been laying down their lives for her for thousands of years without really knowing why, or who they're really on the side of. That's not an acceptable status quo to just propagate into the future.

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It is precisely this self-sacrifice what triggers the DRK questline, and others sacrificing their lives for us (Haurchefant and Ysayle being the most prominent) is what weighs the heaviest in the WoL/D's mind. And while of course there were people who turned against Hydaelyn, there are two particular Warriors of Light we are told of in Stormblood, Ramza Beoulve and Tenzen, who gave into self-sacrifice as well, leaving their dear ones behind (Delita Heiral, Alma Beoulve, Orran Durai; Byakko, Suzaku, Genbu and Seiryu) because of this "chosen one's duty". Alma Beoulve herself, as a way to comfort Delita, tells him that "before he was your friend, before he was my brother, he was a Warrior of Light" (great comfort right there), and Ivalice being probably one of the first great kingdoms in the world after the Sundering, I wonder if their mentality was more Hydaelyn-worship-like back in those days.

I mean just because we haven't died (We are the main character) doesn't mean we aren't self sacrificing, we constantly throw ourselves into horrible situations for the benefit of others, often with the precursor of "You're our only hope!" or "You'll likely die!" We just overcome, we still willingly throw ourselves into dangerous situations that could likely get us killed or seriously injured for the sake of others.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

If the logic we're given in 2.0 still holds true then yes, return to the Lifestream does undo tempering. (Ascians' corporeal forms can be repeatedly killed to no end due to their ability to cheat death.)

If we're to take Emet-Selch's account at face value, summoning Zodiark was a grim necessity to stop the Final Days. Summoning Hydaelyn was never a necessity, but a world where life exists as nothing more than livestock to feed a false deity in exchange for "miracles" has so many problems it's unreal. Third options are nice to have or try to make, but due to time constraints or unwillingness to compromise, sometimes there aren't any to be had.

We don't really know what Azem did in response to the summons. Something to keep in mind however is that we are not Azem: we are our own person, even if we have similar tendencies and possess (most of) Azem's soul. Further Azem's defining characteristic was aligning with anyone and everyone to do good; while s/he may not have condoned the summons of Zodiark and Hydaelyn, if their goals aligned there would be no reason not to work with them.

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You need to go back to the ending of Anemnesis Anyder. That is the ending scene that looks different when you play through 5.3. What we can recognize as the revelation is that Venat becoming the heart of Hydaelyn is like Elidibus (become a primal) and even makes the remark that they will return in whatever form they choose. So really the question we need to be debating is who is/was Venat?

If you follow the other details of that conversation you will also note that summoning Zodiark doesn't actually fix the problem as noted by the 12 Hydaelyn Convocation members with Venat. They even say that the Zodiark Convocation refuses to even listen or debate the subject, probably referring to all of them being tempered by Zodiark, and that goes against a pillar of their society which hinges of debating subjects. The only solution that will save the star is to summon Hydaelyn. This is all agreed upon by Venat and his 12 Hydaelyn Convocation. Although this hasn't been confirmed, we can probably make a pretty educated guess the 12 remaining convocation members that summon Hydaelyn are the 12 gods of the humanoid races.

Regarding us being chosen, the scene at the end of Anemnesis Anyder refers to the "defector"who was most likely Azem. Azem was invited to the 14th seat of the Hydaelyn faction, but either refused or was unable to be contacted. Furthermore, we haven't seen much beyond Venat's decision to become the heart of Hydaelyn, so we're not sure if Azem joins the Hydaelyn faction or not. So this creates the misstep of how have we been reincarnated to be Hydaelyn's champion. We can probably assume this tidbit will be filled in later, but if Azem did not side with the Hydaelyn faction, they were off pursuing a 3rd option that is different from summoning either Zodiark or Hydaelyn.

Finally, regardless if we are Azem reincarnated or the "new" Azem, we still need to learn the missing information from what the "old" Azem did. We can't properly make the right choice between Zodiark, Hydaelyn, or the 3rd option until that's been cleared up. This is our second major philosophical hurdle, because we have evidence from the past says Zodiark is bad and Hydaelyn is bad, yet in the present we are Hydaelyn's champion.

I am here mulling over this thing that Yoshi-P said we should look back to Heavensward to know where are we heading, and my mind is just processing how the whole thing with Hydaelyn and Zodiark might as well be the greater-scope-version of the Dragonsong War.

Let us recap: King Thordan and his knights twelve break the peace between dragons and Elezen, then Nidhogg seeks vengeance on them for Ratatoskr's murder, but he is badly wounded, though he felled Thordan in battle. Hraesvelgr surrenders one of his eyes to his brood-brother, allowing Nidhogg to blindly pursue his revenge. On the knights' side, Prince Haldrath takes both eyes of Nidhogg and gives up the throne as a wandering dragoon. Then, the ancestors of Houses Fortemps, Haillenarte, Durendaire and Dzemael decide to leave the throne empty, instead retelling Ishgard's history to hide their past sins. Over time, only the clergy knew the truth behind the Dragonsong War, a lie for which lives were needlessly lost in both sides: no one would listen the Dravanians' side and they were not willing to speak but to act, and the Ishgardians were regarded as the "good guys" of this tale. Change "Dravanians" for "Ascians" and "Ishgardians" for "inhabitants of the Source" and you will see that in the end, this is the very same old story of a war that (deliberately so) no one remembers how and why began. Prince Haldrath and Hraesvelgr might even fit as Azem, each one remaining "neutral", but allowing others to perpetuate the war by inaction.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

WoL is still alive, you might have noticed.

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Sacrificing yourself for other people doesn't automatically mean getting yourself killed for someone else. The Dark Knight quests revolve around how much you have sacrificed of yourself and yet you never died once.

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Here's the difference - Those people all died for us. All WoL "sacrifices" is time and energy, and even then we see that a part of him despises too much self-sacrifice on his part. When those people give their lives for you, they're not following your example, because your example is to win without dying for it.
Also all of those people were before 3.2 and 3.3 where you resolve not to let that happen again. The doomed future is arguable because A. it's not like WoL was there to stop it and B. time shenanigans makes it so that didn't happen to begin with.

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I can guarantee you all the people I mentioned never planned to actually die for the WoL. All they wanted to do is help us, because we needed it. Weather they would actually live or not wasn't on their minds. Which is exactly the same thing we do: help people who need someone else to help them. What that costs us isn't really something we stop and think about. Although, it almost did cost us ourselves in ShB, so...


If you want to include the list of people in the game who have sacrificed for the WoL without dying, than the list is mind-bogglingly huge. And includes most of the named characters in the game. We have a ton of help from other people to be who we are weather that be job instructors, the Scions the leaders of the city-states, etc. And sure, we do a lot for them too. But most sacrifices people make for each other end up being very reciprocal in nature and a benefit to both parties. So most people really don't think all that much about what we (and a lot of other characters) are actually doing for each other.

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Okay, then you are a hypocrite, because you do exactly that with Estinien.

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Are you kidding? We help Estinean kill Nidhogg. We go with him to the Churning Mists and help him hunt Nidhogg down and set things up so he can get his revenge. We're backing him 100% of the time. Unfortunately, the kids of Midgardsormr are really hard to kill and Nidhogg takes Estiean over. And we still stick around to help Estinean out of that problem too. And than Estinean returns the favor by holding off an Elidibus possessed Zenos and getting us to the Eorzean Alliance. We've got a lot of back-and-forth with Estinean where sometimes we help him and other times he helps us and neither of us are planning on dying while doing that any time soon.

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Look, in this patch we literally beat down the incarnation of self-sacrifice. WoL does not stand for that ideal. Azem wouldn't accept that then, and you don't accept that now. And I think WoL should take major issue with Hydaelyn coercing people to give up their lives to fight for her in a war they don't understand. People have been laying down their lives for her for thousands of years without really knowing why, or who they're really on the side of. That's not an acceptable status quo to just propagate into the future.

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I mean, we spent all of Shadowbringers taking in Light and almost becoming a Lightwarden. If you don't count that as self-sacrifice, I don't know what your definition of self-sacrifice actually is.

As far as we have seen, Hydaelyn never made anyone do anything they weren't already going to do without her help or power. She has never asked us to do anything in the game other than watch what the Ascians are doing and pay attention to them and know that where they go, death usually follows. As for how we were supposed to deal with the Ascians? She never tells us what to do. The only thing she tells us is "shine brightly in the darkness" which... we were arguably already doing before she even told us that. In fact, we're going around solving our chosen city-states latest Ascian plot before we even meet Hydaelyn. The only time I can really think of Hydaelyn telling us to do anything is when we've got Thancred and are trying to get Lahabrea out of him. That's when Hydaelyn tells us to "make a blade of light", which does the job in getting Lahabrea out of Thancred just like we wanted. Other than those two instances please tell me where Hydaelyn ever gives us a list of things we need to do for her before we've already started doing them?

Heck, we ask Hydaelyn for way more than she asks us to do anything. We ask her what her deal is with the Ascians, and she tells us about her and Zoidark's Conflict. We tell her about a Flood of Light that is going to hit the First Shard and Hydaelyn decides she can deal with it herself. And Minfillia decides she can finally do some world-saving of her own. So she hopefully won't have to rely on us (again)!

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Sacrificing yourself for other people doesn't automatically mean getting yourself killed for someone else. The Dark Knight quests revolve around how much you have sacrificed of yourself and yet you never died once.

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Sacrificing of yourself doesn't mean giving your life, yes. And the DRK quests show how a part of WoL has serious issues with the burdens of his position. But when we're talking about self sacrifice, we're talking about lost lives. It's not like Azem quit his job because he'd had enough of having to represent Amaurot and solve issues around the world, he quit and opposed the summonings and their consequences specifically.

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I can guarantee you all the people I mentioned never planned to actually die for the WoL.

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Almost all of them acted with the knowledge they were directly putting their life at risk, if not ending it for sure. Moenbryda gave her aether to the siphon knowing she'd die, Minfilia ran back to be swept into the Lifestream to give her life to Hydaelyn, Harchefaut leapt in front of a spear of aether intended to kill the WoL, and Ysayle kamikazed herself into the Gration undoubtedly not thinking she would survive it. I'm not saying they were pre-planning to kill themselves ahead of time, but Harchefaut is the only one I'd even tacitly be willing to believe acted thinking he might survive.

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Are you kidding? We help Estinean kill Nidhogg. We go with him to the Churning Mists and help him hunt Nidhogg down and set things up so he can get his revenge. We're backing him 100% of the time. Unfortunately, the kids of Midgardsormr are really hard to kill and Nidhogg takes Estiean over. And we still stick around to help Estinean out of that problem too.

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Are you just, forgetting the point where he's literally begging you to kill him so that Nidhogg could be destroyed? Everyone aside from Alphinaud and yourself took Estinien for a lost cause, even the man himself, but you deny him his self-sacrifice and choose to save him no matter what.

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I mean, we spent all of Shadowbringers taking in Light and almost becoming a Lightwarden. If you don't count that as self-sacrifice, I don't know what your definition of self-sacrifice actually is.

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You didn't end up dying to do it and never intended to do so. Not to mention we've already established WoL is a hypocrite who is willing to take on risks and sacrifices that he wouldn't abide for others.

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As far as we have seen, Hydaelyn never made anyone do anything they weren't already going to do without her help or power.

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Having people act for you out of ignorance is coercion, and no the "she's just a dumb Primal" excuse doesn't make it any better.

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As for how we were supposed to deal with the Ascians? She never tells us what to do.

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She literally says, "The Ascians cannot be suffered to continue." If that isn't her telling you what to do, I don't know what is.

Okay, if you think "self-sacrifice" only "counts" when someone actually dies, then I have nothing more to discuss with you on the topic. We're using to completely different definitions for the same word phrase.

By the time Hydaelyn tells us the Ascians need to be taken out, we have already been working directly against their manipulations for a while. We found evidence that something bad was going on in the city state we started and were determined to get to the bottom of it... which just so happened to have an Ascian pulling the strings. Us and Hydaelyn are more collaborators working against the same force and have something the other needs. We have agency outside of the Lifestream; Hydaelyn has information about the Ascians we desperately need if we're going to combat them. We are more partners than goddess and follower.

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Okay, if you think "self-sacrifice" only "counts" when someone actually dies,

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It "only counts" that way because we're talking about the sacrifices brought about by Zodiark and Hydaelyn, which were lives. It's true WoL has issues with the burdens of other types of sacrifices, but what we know he finds particularly unconscionable is when people lose their lives.

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Hydaelyn has information about the Ascians we desperately need if we're going to combat them.

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What information has she given up exactly? Because "THEY'RE DARKNESS, THEY'RE EVIL, THEY REJOICE IN DEATH, AND THEY CANNOT BE SUFFERED TO CONTINUE" isn't "information", it's a load of propaganda.

Btw the literal meaning of self sacrifice is

self-sacrifice*noun

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self-sac·​ri·​fice*|*\*ˌself-ˈsa-krə-ˌfīs*also*-fəs*or*-ˌfīz**\

Definition of*self-sacrifice

:*sacrifice of oneself or one's interest for others or for a cause or ideal

First Known Use of*self-sacrifice

1591, in the meaning defined*above

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dict...self-sacrifice

So both views on the definition are correct however what the WoL does is Self Sacrifice even without dying. He/she would rather give their life than let others die. "For those we have lost, for those we can yet save"

The PC is very self-sacrificing. They don't (and arguably due to gameplay purposes can't) die, but they have given of themselves again and again and again and again and again and again. It's easy to sit back in our chairs and say "Whatever," but the amount of pain they've endured is so great it leaves Fordola speechless when she sees it in 4.1. That's before learning we've been fighting under false pretenses, necessary though the fight may be.

It's easy to die for a cause. Living for it is much, much harder.

It's easy to say that it's easy to die for a cause, but that's giving up your entire life, all of your convictions, and possibly your cause in and of itself if your death doesn't seal its success. Like sure, it's easy to run in and get yourself killed. Sure, it's harder to stay alive on the front lines of conflict, where so much comes down to circumstance. It's another thing entirely to put yourself there knowing you could fail and die, especially if it's for the cause alone.

We're allowed to say what our WoL is in the game for, power, wealth, or what have you, but we don't often get to express it. There are character traits for the WoL that are presented as canon, whether we like them or not. But the fact remains that the WoL benefits 100% in every way by gallivanting and heroing across the world(s). More prestige, more gil, more equipment, ins with every major leader, military, and heads of state. For all the pain that the WoL goes through, there is incentive in abundance. Forbidden knowledge, heretical arts, secret techniques... about the only thing the WoL doesn't really get is physical intimacy and romance.

Except there are easier ways to get all of that, we're not the only hero just the most renown currently, while we are free to decide why we fight to a degree the fact remains is if all we cared about was fame, power, money or even knowledge we have better and less life threatening ways to gain in.
Fame? Could just roam the world beating the best of the best or just go kill some unkillable monsters of legend.
Power? With how much we already have we could just go anywhere looking for relics or lost allag items.
Gill? So many options, charge the city states to deal with things for them, the Colosseum, hell we could just stand around, people would pay just to see us showboat and kill some weak things, or even join the syndicate.
While we can chose if our WoL gets a raise out of different aspects of our role if we didn't care at all about the greater good it makes no sense we would chose to nearly get ourselves killed every other week going head first into the worst possible situations.

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

So there was probably a lot more reasons than just "summoning a god is bad" that led Azem to not wanting to summon Zoidark.

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One reason might have been that utilizing Creation magic on a massive scale to imbue the planet with a will in order to do what the Convocation couldn't in response to Creation magic going haywire was sounded like a bad plan. Remember that the monsters in the Amaurot dungeon were spawned from the Ancients' nightmares and deepest fears, and that we are told at several points that Creation magic is based on intent, and something as simple as seeing an eagle fly past changes a lion into a griffon. Now imagine that the Convocation, who are themselves at odds, and are desperate to save their people, pool their aether and their talents into Creating something that by definition is more powerful than they are.

Ending up with an entity capable of overwriting the will of his creators with his own desires seems almost inevitable under the circumstances.

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

Not even the Sundered necessarily see Zodiark as a god, as shown by Fandaniel. So I have no idea why Lahabrea got tempered hard enough to believe Zodiark to be the True God, when even Emet-Selch went "yeah, Zodiark's a Primal, he tempered us, next question".

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When Emet-Selch gives us the big reveal after Qitana Ravel, he says:

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Emet-Selch: But through prayer and sacrifice, the will of the star was made manifest.
Emet-Selch: Zodiark was His name, and by His grace was the calamity averted.
Emet-Selch:...A savior mighty and magnificent, deserving of reverence and gratitude one would have thought.

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That definiitely sounds like worship.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

It's easy to die for a cause. Living for it is much, much harder.

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In Stormblood, we get that almost word-for-word as a Hamiliton quote: "Dying is easy, soldier--living is harder."

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Originally Posted by Rosenoire

When Emet-Selch gives us the big reveal after Qitana Ravel, he says:



That definiitely sounds like worship.

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To be honest, given Emet-Selch's later (and some earlier) comments, I've always read this as biting sarcasm on Emet-Selch's part. But it's true that he could be sincere here, and the dialogue where he's less than reverent towards Zodiark could be his way of playing it cool for some reason.

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

To be honest, given Emet-Selch's later (and some earlier) comments, I've always read this as biting sarcasm on Emet-Selch's part. But it's true that he could be sincere here, and the dialogue where he's less than reverent towards Zodiark could be his way of playing it cool for some reason.

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It was sarcasm on Emet's part. But I think he was referring to the fact that even though they sacrificed so much to get Zodiark and saved their civilization, there was still a faction that broke off and summoned Hydaelyn, leading to the situation he has in the present of setting up and causing rejoinings. That he is allowed, from his POV, to be a bit salty about.

Really fun thread to read, and a bit of a necro. So we're going to head to Sharlayan and there's almost 100% going to be an ascian there. There's a good chance the reason they choose not to intervene is also because said ascian is in a position of power. So one observation is which Ascian would it be?

Halmarut's identity is unknown, but after we do Akademia Anyder we learn that he specifically is mentioned as a "Professor." He would likely be the one we encounter in Sharlayan.

An interesting take as well is that we are now armed with the ability to 'cure' tempering, which would include removing Zodiark's tempering from an actual Ancient. The implications would be kind of interesting if we have an opportunity to create an ally from an Ascian to help us fight against Fandaniel.

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(from original post) As of 5.3, we also possess all of those stones. (Or they vanish into the aether with Elidibus's soul, I'm not quite sure.)

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As of 5.55, this is still the case, and we still haven't told any of our friends so far that we are part of this collective and entrusted with the responsibility to eventually reunite the convocation. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

I really love the idea of secrecy about multiple group memberships. Who we open up about this to is going to be really interesting. It feels like we are on equal footing to Urianger's secrecy at this point.

I think it will become problematic and I am hyped. I keep thinking about some point where Moenbrydah relays that she finally understands (something) before she dies. And Urianger is very comforted by that. But not sure what that means.

I so want to use my golden tablets as Dionysus/Persephone and summon my new old ween-woon bros and have a final meal with them while we kill gods and alien spaceships thank you.

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Originally Posted by vormela

I think it will become problematic and I am hyped. I keep thinking about some point where Moenbrydah relays that she finally understands (something) before she dies. And Urianger is very comforted by that. But not sure what that means.

I so want to use my golden tablets as Dionysus/Persephone and summon my new old ween-woon bros and have a final meal with them while we kill gods and alien spaceships thank you.

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She finally understands why Louisiox left her. She mentioned previously that she wondered why Louisiox had hand-picked the students that followed him to Eorzea and left Sharlayan, and left her in the dark; why he would abandon everything for a backwater region that couldn't even consider uniting against a common threat. She felt hurt by his actions, but she realized that he did it to protect her, because anyone who followed him would be a pariah in Sharlayan society; at the end, she realized it was self-sacrifice Louisoix was doing, he just loved Eorzea that much (or at least had enough of a sense of Duty). Urianger was comforted because at least she didn't die thinking she had been abandoned.

More on topic: I'm very much intrigued about our remaining Ascians. Especially Altima, who has the potential to be either one of the most interesting Ascians or the least developed, and that's counting Deudalaphon not appearing AT ALL outside of the convocation crystal name-dropping him. Bringing stuff from other games: Hashmal (the Leo Lucavi) orchestrated the entire plot to bring back Ultima, so I wouldn't discount Fandaniel (the Leo Ascian) being backstabbed by Altima at the last second.

I won't count on it, but I won't discount it, either.

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Originally Posted by vormela

As of 5.55, this is still the case, and we still haven't told any of our friends so far that we are part of this collective and entrusted with the responsibility to eventually reunite the convocation. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

I really love the idea of secrecy about multiple group memberships. Who we open up about this to is going to be really interesting. It feels like we are on equal footing to Urianger's secrecy at this point.

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Do you think we “read” each of those memory crystals before handing them to Elidibus? I think we did. :o

I was surprised when I saw our PC kneeling down and giving the crystals to Elidibus. It would make more sense if we’ve read them and wanted him to remember too.

Well, we are good at keeping secrets. Did we tell anyone about Ardbert besides Seto? :confused:

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Originally Posted by vormela

As of 5.55, this is still the case, and we still haven't told any of our friends so far that we are part of this collective and entrusted with the responsibility to eventually reunite the convocation. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!.

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It's very clearly implied that we told them off-camera when Urianger explains his theory on Azem/Azeyma/Azim after the 5.3 MSQ because the only way he could know about Azem is if we told him

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Originally Posted by Dawn_FF14

Do you think we “read” each of those memory crystals before handing them to Elidibus? I think we did. :o

I was surprised when I saw our PC kneeling down and giving the crystals to Elidibus. It would make more sense if we’ve read them and wanted him to remember too.

Well, we are good at keeping secrets. Did we tell anyone about Ardbert besides Seto? :confused:

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I think giving the crystals to Elidibus served two purposes, given they disappear into the Tower with him. Granted, I'm not sure if the WoL is canonically smart enough to think of both (not a dig at the WoL, they just aren't exactly depicted as the Scions' idea guy):

1. A way of granting a bit of psychological peace at death for a person who... I'm gonna be honest, did nothing to deserve it, but apparently the WoL is more forgiving of that than me.

2. Disposal. Those crystals disappeared into the Tower with Elidibus, and can be presumed lost. Which is good, because that's the way Ascians have been returned to 'active duty' in all but one very-near-case, and generally speaking you want less omnicidal megalomaniacs rather than more.

Presuming those crystals were the real ones (and there's nothing to suggest they weren't other than 'well, that was a real dumb thing to give us'), disposing of them with Elidibus was the best way to ensure the Ascian problem essentially has a 'cap' put on it; without a way to replenish their numbers, they will eventually all be dead and gone, or at least the ones willing to act are. It's possible someone like Pashtarot has something resembling self-preservation and just isn't gonna go rattling a saber anytime soon now that nobody can bring them back.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

1. A way of granting a bit of psychological peace at death for a person who... I'm gonna be honest, did nothing to deserve it, but apparently the WoL is more forgiving of that than me.

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Well, that's a disturbing thing to hear. Nobody needs to "earn" the right to be treated with respect upon their death, death is largely sacrosanct amongst the various civilized cultures. The ones that do not practice it don't bear thinking about. It is incredibly disheartening to hear such a thing, what's next? Need we begin to start executing wrongdoers utilizing methods that cause as much pain and misery as possible? The Inquisition and it's methods ought to stay in the past, anything less is unthinkable. Don't pay evil unto evil.

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Originally Posted by SentioftheHoukai

Well, that's a disturbing thing to hear.

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Even on a less serious note, I personally find the game — and, mind you all, it is a game, full of fictional characters and impossible scenarios — to be a lot more enjoyable when I actually bother to acknowledge nuance, rather than refuse it.
Though... Maybe that's not for everyone.

As long as they remember it's a game, I think it's fine to let people express whatever cherry-picked hatred/disgust they'd like.
Or, conversely, I think it's fine to let people shower their favourite characters with whatever cherry-picked adoration they'd like.

My only request is that people keep this attitude within the confines of the game and its characters, rather than attacking one another for liking/disliking what they like/dislike.

Edit: As I am wont to do, I'd like to append something of relevance.

We can speculate on the state of any given Ascian's memories (or at least the unsundereds' memories of said Ascians), but I'm much more curious about their souls. If we obliterate a sundered soul, does that mean that the remaining shards would never be able to be whole again?
In an alternate reality in which the Ascians succeed and the worlds are rejoined, is it believed that Nabriales/Igeyorhm would simply remain incomplete?

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Originally Posted by SentioftheHoukai

Well, that's a disturbing thing to hear. Nobody needs to "earn" the right to be treated with respect upon their death, death is largely sacrosanct amongst the various civilized cultures. The ones that do not practice it don't bear thinking about. It is incredibly disheartening to hear such a thing, what's next? Need we begin to start executing wrongdoers utilizing methods that cause as much pain and misery as possible? The Inquisition and it's methods ought to stay in the past, anything less is unthinkable. Don't pay evil unto evil.

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There is a vast difference between "disrespecting the dead" or inflicting deliberate torture on people versus simply not agreeing to carry out your enemy's dying wish.

You are assuming malice far beyond what was said in the post you quoted.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

There is a vast difference between "disrespecting the dead" or inflicting deliberate torture on people versus simply not agreeing to carry out your enemy's dying wish.

You are assuming malice far beyond what was said in the post you quoted.

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Yeah, this isn't really malice on my part. In my book, while you absolutely don't need to earn respect being given upon your death, you can absolutely lose right to it, and at this stage in their lives, the Ascians absolutely have. That doesn't mean I'll look for their graves to throw a party about smashing the headstone, but when the majority of their deeds in life consisted of making lives worse or outright ending them, they don't really deserve the good graces they gave nobody else.

Are the Devs. telling us that these other Ascians were just a fever dream at this point? Because the Ascian Storyline is pretty much over, but there was still Lesser Ascians unaccounted for and some didn't even have names.

I kind don't like them ignoring loose ends like this unless Gaius defeated them off screen somewhere.

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Originally Posted by Kaliesto

Are the Devs. telling us that these other Ascians were just a fever dream at this point? Because the Ascian Storyline is pretty much over, but there was still Lesser Ascians unaccounted for and some didn't even have names.

I kind don't like them ignoring loose ends like this unless Gaius defeated them off screen somewhere.

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I think we can safely assume they have been killed by people like Gauis. Or they killed themselves with the Tolophoroi.

I also guess we're supposed to assume Gaius dealt with them while in his shadowhunter phase. The characters are sure acting like they're gone. It was really weird it wasn't addressed directly though.

With Zodiark dead the Ascians don't have a purpose more anyway, but it's weird the ones we saw in ARR haven't even been mentioned since (in the present I mean, not the Convocation of the past)

10 chars too little

Deudalaphon remains the only member of the Ascians/Convocation to not be explicitly named within the game and any of it's suplementary materials upto this point!

I'd groan very loudly if our missing Ascians got dealt with off-screen

Emet also told us the duties of Altima, Halmarut, and Pashtarot; meaning Deudalaphon is the only Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Game of our missing 4 (and Schordinger's Emmerololth... and the 2 extra Ascians in 2.3). I'm hoping that if they got offed at some point we at least get an Echo vision of it, or they're involved in Pandaemonium SOMEHOW.

Of note about Lahabrea/Pandaemonium

Emet also mentioned of Lahabrea that he'd "brought forth phantom beings of the highest complexity". I'm... thinking this was foreshadowing about Pandaemonium... but not sure if it's the resting place of said creatures... or the name of the most powerful of them considering the stinger...

I do wonder what happened to them all. It seems odd that they didn’t really address it. But maybe it’ll get handled in the patches. I know they said this is the end of the Ascians, but maybe that’s just as an antagonistic force.

I get that they want to put the Ascians away and call them done, but it is very weird that they just sort of memory-holed the last four (Emmerololth I can understand, she did at least die). Like... really, guys? You don't even want to keep a few space wizards in the back pocket as a treat or a just-in-case?

Looking further into some background with names.. I believe we can almost confirm Lahabrea as Hephaestus.

From the new raid series we have a new Ancient named Erichthonius, who has said his mother was Athena. Looking on the name we see that threw Greek shenanigans (not PG do not look it up) his parents where infact Hephaestus and Athena.

Plus it dose kinda fit, Laha is the speaker, he has the final say in what creation plans get approved and what gets locked away or destroyed. Hermes is head of Elpis but still has to send his stuff to Laha in the end and more then likely there are other creation sites besides Elpis.

Also in Elpis there was a point you could speak to Emet and he would elaborate on the actual organization of the Convocation and specifically, what each seat dealt with in day to day affairs (much of it, rather mundane government work) - some of it was rather surprising, for instance Altima being responsible for, among other things, the arts especially was an eyebrow raiser for me. ;) So studying that might help fill in a lot of the blanks about the Ascians and their titles, and who they might have been back in the Unsundered World.

Elpis also confirmed Elidibus's statement back when he first appeared in ARR about his white robe identifying him as an 'emmisary', and getting rather insulted no one knew what the hell he was talking about (given it was common knowledge in ancient times). Seats on the Convocation that were emmisary/liason roles (as in, dealt with the wider world at large or the common people directly) wore white robes identifying them as such, and the seat of Elidibus was one of them, (something he carried with him post Sundering and his status as Zodairk's heart).

Interestingly, it seams the seat of Azem was also one that wore a white robe given Emet's above explanation about the Convocation stated Azem's role also involved interacting directly with 'the masses', allthough it was not confimed, it does probably however explain Venat's more slightly greyish robe, as a former Azem who refused to 'return to the Star' upon her resignation she probably had to change her robe's colour to reflect her new social status as no longer part of the Convocation, but still serving a "help anyone"/defender of the world role (sound familiar?).

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Seats on the Convocation that were emmisary/liason roles (as in, dealt with the wider world at large or the common people directly) wore white robes identifying them as such, and the seat of Elidibus was one of them, (something he carried with him post Sundering and his status as Zodairk's heart).

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Actually, I'm almost completely certain that they said the white robes are a mark of impartiality, and are only worn by the Emissary and retired Convocation members like Venat.

The implication is that they can be trusted to not place the interests of the Convocation above those they're helping or advising, and may even act against its interests.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Also in Elpis there was a point you could speak to Emet and he would elaborate on the actual organization of the Convocation and specifically, what each seat dealt with in day to day affairs (much of it, rather mundane government work) - some of it was rather surprising, for instance Altima being responsible for, among other things, the arts especially was an eyebrow raiser for me. ;) So studying that might help fill in a lot of the blanks about the Ascians and their titles, and who they might have been back in the Unsundered World.

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I believe that there is, even with all that, a single blank: we still know nothing about Deudalaphon.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Interestingly, it seams the seat of Azem was also one that wore a white robe given Emet's above explanation about the Convocation stated Azem's role also involved interacting directly with 'the masses', allthough it was not confimed, ...

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I didn't get any impression that we were supposed to think Azem is white-robed. The significance of Venat's robe was highlighted as her being an ex-member, nothing to do with the position itself.