*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

I'm kind of puzzled by how there are apparently a lot of players who feel that Emet-Selch was correct, but I haven't seen many (or indeed any thus far) who feel that Fandaniel was correct.

Both of them had a member of the Scions go "well they have a point", after all.

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Emet-Selch's position is one better argued by other stories tackling a similar idea: That what everyone perceives as reality is really a fantasy, and in order to awaken to the true reality they must destroy that fantasy world. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance had that story, even including the part where Marche is treated as the villain by several characters (and the fandom, natch) for his efforts to return the world to the way it was. And in another franchise entirely, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening features a largely bare bones story in which Link must awaken a godlike being at the center of the game's setting (an island), knowing that the entire island and all its inhabitants will cease to exist when he succeeds. There's a brief moment in the plot where one of the antagonists tries to convince Link that he'll cease to exist as well, and the manga adaptations of the story play up the existential drama of Koholint Isle's people for all its worth.

To put it another way: In another story, Emet-Selch would actually be the hero struggling to save his people from a Lotus Eater Machine (insert TVTropes link here) forcing them to live out fantasy lives at the cost of their real selves. But that's a different story, and in FFXIV, he is instead the villain struggling to end the real lives of his long since reborn people to try and bring back the fantasy world of his past.

By contrast, "I think all of reality should get on with ceasing to be, and am going to do my part to make it happen" is... really not something that comes across as reasonable to anyone. Most people prefer being alive to not, and most people would hope for something after the end of all things. A Big Crunch following after the Big Freeze, leading into a new Big Bang. Even the one video game story I can think of to actually argue in favor of that—Dark Souls III—has its particular "let it all end" endings end with the hopeful observation of things beginning anew.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

...which, incidentally, might explain why one of the only primals outside of The Big Two that never tempered anyone, including its summoners, was Alexander. If Ascian-assisted primal summoning is a deliberately faulty and inefficient build, then it only makes sense that the guys that found and solved the engineering problem were the society of engineers.

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See that's what's puzzling me because that's NOT what apparently happened. There was a whole dialog choice in Shadowbringers where you can talk with Emet and he says he was and has no reason to lie.

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Originally Posted by myahele

Yes, he says so himself

https://i.imgur.com/uA07Hl2.png

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I don't think this part of why is actually over. What reason would he have to lie about it? This is why I suspect that there is a bit more to it than it being dismissed by the Lopprites and not to mention the entire themes of releasing people from being tempered. The Lopprites only explained that "they taught others to do it the wrong way"

Elpis Emet expressed horror that he would murder so many. So yes, I don't believe the line of reasoning is correct that people who did summon Zodiark weren't tempered.

His last line where he said if it were indistinguishable from the truth. I do believe may be that they may not have knowingly been tempered or he left out "tempered by design".

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

I'm kind of puzzled by how there are apparently a lot of players who feel that Emet-Selch was correct, but I haven't seen many (or indeed any thus far) who feel that Fandaniel was correct.

Both of them had a member of the Scions go "well they have a point", after all.

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Well from the perspective of Emet, and even the WoL since he went there back in Elpis we see a world that honestly looked a lot better, was better objectively speaking.
-Immortality
-Power of creation
-Society that focuses on fixing problems and improvement
-Literally being able to see the lifestream resulting in a society where death is not as scary, your soul just goes to rest, it never truly "dies" (Though I have a question now, can we destroy souls in this universe?)
-Researching many aspects of life, hence why I said dynamis would end up being the subject of research sooner or later just like we in real life have created tools to measure things we cannot see, so sundering was not required.

This isnt some delusion of the great perfect past like we see certain groups of people IRL fall victim to, this is an objectively better world that CAN come back if appropriate steps are taken including the rejoinings, this is an achievable feat.

Imagine your life being shattered into 14 pieces, all those 14 pieces are dumber, weaker and are a parody compared to your own full self, if you watch them live their lives you might even feel disgusted.
All these pieces have lives, they might be happy, even content though unlikely but due to having a part of your soul they are "living beings" in all regards.

Are you telling me you would prefer to keep this sundered parody of existence going instead of reunite all those soul parts to bring back the ORIGINAL, objectively better existence. That is the perspective of Emet and I absolutely agree with him, the parodies of the shards hold little value compared to what was.
And if you want to not feel bad about it, just remember the fact that those are FRACTURED SOULS, souls dont die, they will simply reunite and become the original soul, which just like in Ancient society never truly ceases to exist.


And to be honest, everytime I see Emet selch memes now I feel so sad because he was done dirty, he didnt deserve this :(

Meanwhile Fandaniel's beliefs are similar to hermes, extremely personal, he felt like a stranger among the people he was born both times, he ended up hating everyone around him for not being like him and both times tried to find solace in an external source, Xande or previously "what will other maybe more advanced civilizations believe", he never looked inward and that was the problem, because that is where you find the answer to such questions or more importantly the reason WHY you even NEED such answers to begin with.

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Originally Posted by myahele

Yes, he says so himself

https://i.imgur.com/uA07Hl2.png

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I dont believe anyone is disagreeing with that statement, that is true, he was tempered, but if like the loporits said "if you summon such enormously powerful creature sbeing tempered is just a small "tug"" then that isnt the "tempered" we are imagining from what we ve seen the primals or towers do to the ones around them.

And his actions show it, the Ascians very focus from the beginning has been to restore their old world any means necessary, it might look chaotic evil from the perspective of the races who did not know the ancients, but everything was planned and calculated.

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Originally Posted by Zoliru

I dont believe anyone is disagreeing with that statement, that is true, he was tempered, but if like the loporits said "if you summon such enormously powerful creature sbeing tempered is just a small "tug"" then that isnt the "tempered" we are imagining from what we ve seen the primals or towers do to the ones around them.

And his actions show it, the Ascians very focus from the beginning has been to restore their old world any means necessary, it might look chaotic evil from the perspective of the races who did not know the ancients, but everything was planned and calculated.

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Read back up on who I quoted. They directly contradicted so which I had to enlist proof. "Besides the big two" That's incorrect since Zodiark IS one of the Big two INCLUDING its summoners.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

Allowing a timeline to continue is sacrificing it? And yes, a willing sacrifice in hopes of creating a world not choking to death on Black Rose is a good thing, unlike killing innocents to resurrect your dead friends. I never had issue with Zodiarks summoning, only the events after.

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They don't even know their timeline will continue to exist until after g'raha went to the past. With all the technology they gather from omega, CT, and Alexander, instead of trying to move past the disaster they go with the time travel route. All of this just to bet everything on the WoL, again.

What about other people who are against the idea? People who lives on other continent who doesn't even know who the WoL is and prefer if the Ironworks to use all that technology to combat the Black Rose? Screw them right?

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Originally Posted by Kozh

They don't even know their timeline will continue to exist until after g'raha went to the past. With all the technology they gather from omega, CT, and Alexander, instead of trying to move past the disaster they go with the time travel route. All of this just to bet everything on the WoL, again.

What about other people who are against the idea? People who lives on other continent who doesn't even know who the WoL is and prefer if the Ironworks to use all that technology to combat the Black Rose? Screw them right?

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What other people? I thought it was established that unlike the partially aborted 7th calamity, the 8th was a full calamity and all of society crumbled. A large chunk if not the majority of people left are wandering bandits and it's a true apocalyptic scenario that hasn't changed for the better in hundreds of years and will take many hundreds more yet for the world to get back up on its feet again to a semblance of where it was before. On top of that, I thought it was insinuated that another calamity would leave Hydaelyn so weak that she wouldn't be able to prepare as much for potential upcoming calamities. The end result would be the Ascians in that timeline potentially winning. The actions of the Ironworks have stirred Midgardsormr though, and he's going to lead humanity from that point forward and that is probably the sole light left for them, but we may never know how that ends up if SE never revisits it.

Additionally, there's nothing that could be done about Black Rose by this point. The Calamity had already come and gone and since the end of the story says they're in a new Astral Era, I'm sure it's assumed that Black Rose has already dissipated. Black Rose was already stated to have destroyed the Garlean Empire 200 years ago during the Calamity so who is going to be continuously producing and releasing it? And in a world with no more countries and severely limited communications, how much of the world even knows who the Ironworks are?

While there are similarities between the Ironworks and the Ascians, but that's not to say they're exactly the same. The Ironworks' plan potentially (but didn't) could have sacrificed a world that was already doomed. The Ascians' plan involved knowingly and purposefully sacrificing a world that had just been given new life. The Ascians' plan also involved an aether-hungry god of their creation who bends those near it to His will. A new Amaurot would revolve around Zodiark and it would not be the same Amaurot that existed before. To think otherwise is being naive. In all of the scenes of Amaurot and Elpis, we never see the Ancients gather together in darkness and raise their hands up in prayer to the "one true god", yet we see them do that in ARR.

The lopporits may have said it causes a "tug", but Emet-Selch outright states he is tempered and the dialogue of the others does not sound like sane individuals possessed of their complete will.
Nabriales: "Witness the terrible might of a true servant of Zodiark!" "Insatiable hunger of the void! Devour all light and return this world to perfect darkness!" "Writhing powers of ruination! From the deepest pits of the abyss I summon thee!"

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Originally Posted by Elladie

However no one involved in the Crystal Tower experiment expected that timeline to survive. And large numbers of the people involved were against it, so much so that they attacked the Ironworks to try and stop it. Even G'raha expected to die when the possibility of the 8th Calamity was finally destroyed.

So the fact that it didn't end is irrelevant when considering people's motives and whether they are entitled to take the moral highground. Yoshida himself has drawn parallels between G'raha and Emet-Selch and intimated that the only thing that makes one of them the villain and the other the hero is that G'raha's team won

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Yet just as many if not more donated resources and supported the cause even as the world burned down around them. The people who left or disagreed did so not because they thought it necessary to protect themselves, but that what the ironworks was attempting was impossible and pointless and thus a waste of resources.

And no, I never said comparisons couldn’t be drawn. My issue is with portraying the two as morally or ethical equivalent. They are not.

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Originally Posted by Elladie

Any creatures remain concepts until Hythlodaeus passes them for 'general use'; before that, no souls. They still die, of course, if they're 'discontinued' but the Ancients seem to collectively see this not as death but as a change of form; they go back to aether and get used again in some other concept

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In the german version Hermes says that the difference between such beings is the soul but that the Ancients cant create one thus its bascially RNG if a creation gets one.

And even though we do have a soul (even if its sundered) Hythlo and Emet still called us an It for quite some time at the beginning and most Ancients there did see us as just an familiar. Basically if you are not a born Ancient you are in some ways bellow them.

So I can fully see that they would still "kill" a concept even if it had a soul.

Now that I don't have a splitting caffeine headache...

On the point of Fandaniel's ideals, they essentially boil down to nihilism. The thing about nihilism is that it is a purely objective philosophy - there is no objective meaning to anything. Everything you've ever known and loved will one day be so much dust in the wind. That's just a starting point, though; bereft of objective meaning people must look inward for a subjective meaning to their lives, and deciding the meaning of your existence is to hasten along the oblivion of all things is popularly decided to be an awful raison d'etre.

"Concept" is just a template for a given creation. Whether or not it gets a soul is dependent on whether or not said creation works within the laws of nature; living things like animals get souls, while decidedly unnatural things like elemental sprites don't. Such living things will be repurposed (put down) if they don't meet the Ancients' standards for being released into the ecosystem from Elpis, such as the water-leaning charybdis that was about to be put down for both its aberrant nature and being afraid to fly, as well as the aggressive fire-aspected Fenrir things whose exact names I forget. These are living beings with thoughts and feelings of their own, but the Ancients looked at them from a purely objective standpoint and did not sympathize with them except for Hermes. "It's all just aether, so who cares?"

The phoenix in Through His Eyes is meant to be an ironic representation of Emet-Selch's future self: "a soul burdened with regret... [raging] against the pull of the Underworld; [c]onsumed by the fear of death, [thrashing] blindly about, [knowing] only pain and suffering and [inflicting] the same upon others" is a very accurate description of Emet-Selch as we meet him in Shadowbringers.

While the loporrits do tell us that a primal on Zodiark's scale would cause a "tug," Emet-Selch himself says he and the Convocation were tempered when Zodiark was summoned. My take on it is that the summoning arts they taught the beast tribes greatly played up the zealotry of tempered followers, but summons will still temper people even using creation magic proper depending on the scale - it just won't make them slavishly obedient zealots.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

In the german version Hermes says that the difference between such beings is the soul but that the Ancients cant create one thus its bascially RNG if a creation gets one.

And even though we do have a soul (even if its sundered) Hythlo and Emet still called us an It for quite some time at the beginning and most Ancients there did see us as just an familiar. Basically if you are not a born Ancient you are in some ways bellow them.

So I can fully see that they would still "kill" a concept even if it had a soul.

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They're saying that because they've literally never seen something like you before in their lives so they used the evidence in front of them to make a determination as to what you were. They say you're a familiar because you fit all the descriptions of being a familiar. It's no different than if you saw an animal that looked like a housecat and assumed it was a housecat. They're not looking down on you, most of the ancients in the zone treat you just fine (with a few exceptions but lets not forget that people in the modern world sometimes treat you like shit as well and you're their literal savior.) And also, your character is literally telling them in certain quests that you're "Azem's familiar" so you can't blame them for going with what you literally told them.

There's a tales from the shadows that explains the soul thing more, basically a creation that falls inline with the laws of nature can get a soul. So if the ancients want something to have a soul, they try and create something that works with those laws.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

In the german version Hermes says that the difference between such beings is the soul but that the Ancients cant create one thus its bascially RNG if a creation gets one.

And even though we do have a soul (even if its sundered) Hythlo and Emet still called us an It for quite some time at the beginning and most Ancients there did see us as just an familiar. Basically if you are not a born Ancient you are in some ways bellow them.

So I can fully see that they would still "kill" a concept even if it had a soul.

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We also ask if Meteion has a soul, and Hermes's response is "don't know, don't care" (in a positive way, in that he would treasure her regardless), while the Convocation as represented by Emet-Selch is willing to detain and interrogate Meteion without checking if she has a soul.

So my read is that the presence of a soul is not a major consideration with regards to how the Amaurotines would treat a creation, except perhaps as proof that the creation is self-sustaining according to natural laws (which was the pre-requisite for getting a soul in the first place). When the proto-Phoenix in the short stories got a soul, the procedure was to delete and start over, which is consistent with what happens in Elpis. And that's not inherently morally wrong, since that's what Elpis is for, but it's evidence that the presence of a soul doesn't confer any special privileges for a given creation.

The phoenix was a weird case of something gaining a soul in an unnatural manner as it was an arcane entity that was possessed by an existing soul that was meant to return to the Lifestream, but had lingering regrets that kept it from passing peacefully.

But yeah, they don't really care whether or not something has a soul as many of the Ancients giving out quests acknowledge that you're strange due to seemingly being a familiar with a soul, then readily send you off to do some dangerous task they'd rather not be risking their lives with.

That was a major part of ancient society, the fact that they were able to see souls meant that they knew nobody really "died", they soul would live on.

More importantly though, I am curious, souls clearly can be used for power via summoning methods, but can souls be destroyed? As in truly extinguished and gone forever?

While they initially claimed that the soul of those transformed into blasphemies is completely destroyed, it seems like there's at least some actual trace of it left behind.

role quest spoiler

Which is given a bit more focus in the healer role quest as once its blasphemy is destroyed, Fordola seems have an Echo-granted vision of its former self departing to join the rest of her friends, which grants her some measure of comfort.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

While they initially claimed that the soul of those transformed into blasphemies is completely destroyed, it seems like there's at least some actual trace of it left behind.

role quest spoiler

Which is given a bit more focus in the healer role quest as once its blasphemy is destroyed, Fordola seems have an Echo-granted vision of its former self departing to join the rest of her friends, which grants her some measure of comfort.

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Role quest spoodles

In the quest line they really pushed the point on how much of Charlet remained and was guiding the Blasphemies behavior. Perhaps if one’s soul still shines through enough, it’s a sign it can still to return to the sea?

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

While they initially claimed that the soul of those transformed into blasphemies is completely destroyed, it seems like there's at least some actual trace of it left behind.

role quest spoiler

Which is given a bit more focus in the healer role quest as once its blasphemy is destroyed, Fordola seems have an Echo-granted vision of its former self departing to join the rest of her friends, which grants her some measure of comfort.

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I'm not sure how much of that is evidence per se.

They've never shied away from doing symbolic and clearly non-literal scenes (hell, even this expansion had a big one in the post-Elpis cutscene). And on top of that, Fordola is... not well, and hasn't necessarily been kept abreast of the situation with the finer details of the Blasphemies. I think it's more likely that Fordola essentially pictured that scene to make herself feel better. Because... hell, nobody told her it doesn't work like that. And even if someone did, I'm not sure she'd listen, she is very stubborn.

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

We also ask if Meteion has a soul, and Hermes's response is "don't know, don't care" (in a positive way, in that he would treasure her regardless), while the Convocation as represented by Emet-Selch is willing to detain and interrogate Meteion without checking if she has a soul.

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And yet Hermes still sent her sisters out into the unknown just so that he gets an answer. He is much more caring (but the side quests there show that others are caring as well) but he still creates beings for a certain purpose. To reach his goal he sents a big amount of creatures after us, that all died in a painful way , he blasts us of the arena which would have killed us without Venat saving us. Us who showed him that others can feel sad too.

He knows what the Final Days will bring, not only to mankind but all the creations.

Honestly he really felt like two different people in Elpis. I just cant feel much sympathy for the one he became at the end. (And his decision also meant that Meteion and all of her sister would have to suffer for over 12.000 years...until we come along to put an end to it.)

So one of the bigger questions I sort of thought of; from a practical non-ideological standpoint, was sundering the star really necessary?

A sundered Zodiark, with only 7 rejoinings (even when he had NO rejoinings at one point); was able to hold The Final Days at bay for over 12,000 years with no real sign of faltering in the slightest. Wouldn't it stand to reason that full power unsundered Zodiark could just hold Meteion's dynamis wave back for pretty much all of eternity? Making the sundering pretty much pointless for non-ideological reasons.

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Originally Posted by DarkKiru

So one of the bigger questions I sort of thought of; from a practical non-ideological standpoint, was sundering the star really necessary?

A sundered Zodiark, with only 7 rejoinings (even when he had NO rejoinings at one point); was able to hold The Final Days at bay for over 12,000 years with no real sign of faltering in the slightest. Wouldn't it stand to reason that full power unsundered Zodiark could just hold Meteion's dynamis wave back for pretty much all of eternity? Making the sundering pretty much pointless for non-ideological reasons.

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Sundering Zodiark served two main purposes. First and most important of which was to imprison Zodiark. A unsundered Zodiark is stronger than Hydaelyn and would also mean an unsundered Convocation and the sacrifice of the world's new life in order to bring back Amaurot, which is the entire reason why Hydaelyn was summoned to stop in the first place.

The second reason:

is the classic JRPG trope "the people of the ancient past are unable to fix the problem on our own so we shoved it away and it is up to random adventurers to meet the problem head on and destroy it once and for all". Ancients could not interact with dynamis because their aether is too dense. Sundered people can. Half of the equation for fighting Meteion is the ability to interact with dynamis, the other half is 12000 years of condensed aether Hydaelyn has collected from sitting atop the Lifestream.

So while a full-powered Zodiark could hold the Final Days at bay forever, the world would not be ours and the rest of the universe would eventually twinkle out of existence around us. In my opinion, the world wouldn't be the Ancients' either. A fully-powered Zodiark means an Amaurot that revolves around Him, not the same Amaurot that existed before.


Also, welcome to the forums!

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Originally Posted by DarkKiru

So one of the bigger questions I sort of thought of; from a practical non-ideological standpoint, was sundering the star really necessary?

A sundered Zodiark, with only 7 rejoinings (even when he had NO rejoinings at one point); was able to hold The Final Days at bay for over 12,000 years with no real sign of faltering in the slightest. Wouldn't it stand to reason that full power unsundered Zodiark could just hold Meteion's dynamis wave back for pretty much all of eternity? Making the sundering pretty much pointless for non-ideological reasons.

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In terms of the life of the Universe, or even the planet, even 12,000 years isn't that long. While it's concievable that he could have held the final days at bay forever, I think it's also worth bearing in mind that Meteion only has to win once, Zodiark has to win again and again, forever.

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Originally Posted by DarkKiru

So one of the bigger questions I sort of thought of; from a practical non-ideological standpoint, was sundering the star really necessary?

A sundered Zodiark, with only 7 rejoinings (even when he had NO rejoinings at one point); was able to hold The Final Days at bay for over 12,000 years with no real sign of faltering in the slightest. Wouldn't it stand to reason that full power unsundered Zodiark could just hold Meteion's dynamis wave back for pretty much all of eternity? Making the sundering pretty much pointless for non-ideological reasons.

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In brief: Yes, it was.

It is confirmed, by Emet-Selch himself, that the Convocation's plan never would have actually succeeded in the (very) long-term. This is partly because Zodiark eventually would have faltered, and because they were going down a road of a neverending cycle of sacrifices to try to maintain an unsustainable perfection.

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Originally Posted by DarkKiru

So one of the bigger questions I sort of thought of; from a practical non-ideological standpoint, was sundering the star really necessary?

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No. One of the biggest plot holes in Endwalker is the fact that the Ancients possess on demand Echo visions for memory visions. All Venat had to do was let other Ancients interview the memories she never lost, and then they could have taken the fight to Meteion indirectly through creating other Entelechies after taking the information from Hermes in the same manner, since he rid himself of the memory of Meteion running off but not of the memories necessary to make Entelechies and the know how for an Ancient to interact with and create beings that could interact with Dynamis.

But that's not the story they have to work around. See, the Sundering is necessary for our story to happen, so it has to be told in a way that makes it seem like, "Yeah it was necessary, completely." It'll never pass scrutiny, but so goes most of the game.

As for your Zodiark assertions. They are correct. It should also be noted that he holds the world in its aether blanket passively. There is no exertion on his part. It is part of the weave of his being. It's somewhat of a nice solution for Etheirys, and it was conceived without full knowledge of Meteion's song, which is why it doesn't solve the problem. It sorta leaves the rest of the universe to her machinations though, and I'm loathe to just take her hivemind's word for it that all of the other civilizations in the universe are all dead.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

No. One of the biggest plot holes in Endwalker is the fact that the Ancients possess on demand Echo visions for memory visions. All Venat had to do was let other Ancients interview the memories she never lost, and then they could have taken the fight to Meteion indirectly through creating other Entelechies after taking the information from Hermes in the same manner, since he rid himself of the memory of Meteion running off but not of the memories necessary to make Entelechies and the know how for an Ancient to interact with and create beings that could interact with Dynamis.

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Okay, so I outlined this in a post that was part of a deleted page-or-so of another topic (and fair enough, the argument it was part of was getting ugly), but we can't make assertions like this. There is no value in saying that the story doesn't work because we think we're smarter than the characters within it and have figured out some invisible third option. That gets us nowhere in engaging with the story, and just sends us off into fantasy, arguing against points that the game never actually made.

We have to accept the boundaries put forward by the story itself, that Hydaelyn's plan worked when the alternative would not have. This is directly stated in the game itself, by Emet-Selch (the likely most qualified person to make such a claim): "Still, you must be commended. Our methods would not have brought mankind this far." The moral question is the one that remains, because the practical question has been answered. We can't enter a third option into contention unless the game provides one that's more than just theory.

Which it still might, I will point out! We still don't know what Azem was up to after leaving the Convocation, they may have pursued and found a better alternative. But until one is provided, a third option is just fanfiction. And I've got no problem with fanfiction, but it's just not admissable evidence.

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Originally Posted by DarkKiru

So one of the bigger questions I sort of thought of; from a practical non-ideological standpoint, was sundering the star really necessary?

A sundered Zodiark, with only 7 rejoinings (even when he had NO rejoinings at one point); was able to hold The Final Days at bay for over 12,000 years with no real sign of faltering in the slightest. Wouldn't it stand to reason that full power unsundered Zodiark could just hold Meteion's dynamis wave back for pretty much all of eternity? Making the sundering pretty much pointless for non-ideological reasons.

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Nope, and that was a major issue with endwalker.

Not only has Zodiarc proven to be able to literally stop the wave of dynamis for thousands of years which clearly means even if he faltered it would be many many thousands years from now which as you can imagine is time enough for the ancients to figure out what happened.
Like i pointed out earlier, we are not able to see a lot of energies in real life, but we have made tools to measure such energies, imagine Ancients with the power of creation, and we already have a tool sensitive to dynamis in the elpis flower.

Another major issue is Venat, There's two issues here
1) Either suddenly both the convocation and the entire ancient world lost a ton of intelligence due to despair and could think of literally nothing else other than MOAR SACRIFICE, and considering we know how weak tempering actually is, that was clearly not the reason. Especially the convocation being so full of despair, when we are talking about the smartest individuals of the ancient world, it makes no sense to act like that.
OR
2) She witnessed the desperation of certain ancients and was so disappointed she literally sundered the world early on, never giving the convocation or other intelligent individuals to figure out what happened with the final days.

We are talking about an extremely inquisitive and research focused society, the idea that suddenly nobody cared about what caused the final days and all were just running around being sad and desperate in the streets makes no sense, many would absolutely devote themselves into figuring out what caused the end of days and find out about meiteion and use her superior immune to dynamis forms to blast her with some concentrated aether attack, plus let's not forget zodiarc which can be used to fight meiteion.


At the end of the day it is the problem of introducing the Ancients as immortal being with the power of creation, those two combined are enough to solve any problem, including Meiteion and Venat would have known it due to her life's experiences, but the story had to justify the sundering so we got what we got, which isnt bad but the more you think about it, the more you realize the Ancients would have stopped meiteion themselves given enough time, which said enough time was in ABUNDANCE, thanks to Zodiark.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Okay, so I outlined this in a post that was part of a deleted page-or-so of another topic (and fair enough, the argument it was part of was getting ugly), but we can't make assertions like this. There is no value in saying that the story doesn't work because we think we're smarter than the characters within it and have figured out some invisible third option. That gets us nowhere in engaging with the story, and just sends us off into fantasy, arguing against points that the game never actually made.

We have to accept the boundaries put forward by the story itself, that Hydaelyn's plan worked when the alternative would not have. This is directly stated in the game itself, by Emet-Selch (the likely most qualified person to make such a claim): "Still, you must be commended. Our methods would not have brought mankind this far." The moral question is the one that remains, because the practical question has been answered. We can't enter a third option into contention unless the game provides one that's more than just theory.

Which it still might, I will point out! We still don't know what Azem was up to after leaving the Convocation, they may have pursued and found a better alternative. But until one is provided, a third option is just fanfiction. And I've got no problem with fanfiction, but it's just not admissable evidence.

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I don't think people are saying that these things should have literally happened in-universe, they're saying that the writers did a bad job of explaining/justifying why they couldn't, or why Venat behaved the way she did in general. People aren't indulging in fantasy or fanfiicng about what the characters could have done, they're criticizing the scenario itself.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Okay, so I outlined this

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Except we can, because the Echo IS part of the game, and the Ancients do have it on demand, AND they don't use it. It's not theory, it's conveniently sidelined fact. The third option isn't presented because it can't be for narrative reasons. For narrative reasons there wasn't even actually a second option. They're not even put on the table, because the narrative has to be obeyed. It's an obvious hole, and you can pretend that it's not all you want. I don't care about what Emet-selch says with regards to our success. Our success was a given, his statement in and of itself is a redundancy (and it more or less highlights that, oh hey, until he died his memory was stilled erased and nobody gave him the 4-1-1 on Meteion. You can't solve a problem you don't know about).

As for Azem. I've got a feeling they're going to keep him as part of referential dialogue. Never gonna find out what Azem's up too.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Except we can, because the Echo IS part of the game, and the Ancients do have it on demand, AND they don't use it. It's not theory, it's conveniently sidelined fact. The third option isn't presented because it can't be for narrative reasons. For narrative reasons there wasn't even actually a second option. They're not even put on the table, because the narrative has to be obeyed. It's an obvious hole, and you can pretend that it's not all you want. I don't care about what Emet-selch says with regards to our success. Our success was a given, his statement in and of itself is a redundancy (and it more or less highlights that, oh hey, until he died his memory was stilled erased and nobody gave him the 4-1-1 on Meteion. You can't solve a problem you don't know about).

As for Azem. I've got a feeling they're going to keep him as part of referential dialogue. Never gonna find out what Azem's up too.

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Okay, if you're going to keep clinging to this, then I'm going to pull it apart.

Your entire argument is hinging on, essentially, the assertion that Venat could have talked her way into getting the Ancients to replicate the conditions that ended up working with the Scions. And you've decided that the reason they couldn't, that you've cut down, is because Venat couldn't get people to believe her, except that the Echo would let them and so the argument is invalid.

Except the game never says that she would struggle to get people to believe her. The reasons she's selective about who she tells are twofold:

1. As Hermes himself spoke about, the only way the world has a chance is if he doesn't know about his hand in the End of Days. He will either lose his composure, or outright switch sides, and that's basically a death sentence for the planet because he's the only dynamis-knowledgeable person in a position of power to act in response to it. So she can't tell the Convocation, or anyone else who would tip Hermes off, because even if they don't tell him directly, he would be inquisitive enough to know something's wrong. Zodiark's existence is an important defense, and so Hermes has to stay oblivious enough to make it.
2. Huge bummer. Most people aren't going to take the news of 'hey the world is going to end in horrific disaster' tremendously well; and in fact, we know for a fact the Ancients as a whole most definitely do not. So she has to tell not just people who can be trusted with a secret, but people who can be trusted with a soul-crushing truth.

She does this, and amasses the group we see in Anamnesis in 5.2. So now your theory poses another question: if she has these allies, why doesn't she just go with them to solve the problem right then and there? Well, again, there's two reasons.

1. There's no way she could have known what they'd need. Remember that Ultima Thule is an enigma until we arrive; it's not even a proven fact that there's anything there. Sure, by the end of Endwalker we know that what it took was eight dynamis-capable people with some Ancient help (well, technically nine, but Zenos kinda just provided moral support and a moving platform), but they had absolutely no ability to learn that.
2. The conditions that ended up succeeding couldn't possibly have been replicated artificially, and perhaps the greatest example of that is Estinien. The rest of the Scions connect with the tortured souls of Ultima Thule in their own unique ways, that would've been a tall ask to replicate perfectly; Y'shtola and Urianger reach out through their lifelong love for the pursuit of knowledge, G'raha with indirect experiences that connect with the Omicrons, Alphinaud and Alisaie with both their intellectual and emotional intelligence. But Estinien reaches out with personally-learned, empirical fact, breaking through the dragon's entirely logically-reasoned malaise with lived conviction and physical evidence that they have a future. The Ancients couldn't possibly have done that, because Midgardsormr was still flying.

Venat couldn't have known how to take these shortcuts. But even if she did, trying to take them would have led to failure that they couldn't afford.

The Ancients, intellectually, weren't fools, even though they might have been emotionally. So it stands to reason that if we can think of a third option, then so could they, and perhaps the reason they only had Venat's Plan Hydaelyn and Plan 'Sacrifice Everything To Zodiark' was because all the other plans wouldn't have worked.

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Originally Posted by Zoliru

At the end of the day it is the problem of introducing the Ancients as immortal being with the power of creation, those two combined are enough to solve any problem, including Meiteion and Venat would have known it due to her life's experiences, but the story had to justify the sundering so we got what we got, which isnt bad but the more you think about it, the more you realize the Ancients would have stopped meiteion themselves given enough time, which said enough time was in ABUNDANCE, thanks to Zodiark.

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It wasn't a matter of intelligence but perspective and directive. They had no interest in seeking solutions that wasn't tucking themselves further under the cosmic blanket of Zodiark and ignoring the problem and its source because they felt that had perfection, but in experiencing the trauma of the Final Days they'd lost it. They didn't want to find out why they lost it, they didn't want to know what caused that trauma and heal it because doing so would acknowledge that perfection was lost. They wanted their perfection back, they wanted to unring a bell that had already tolled.

They would do nothing with all of that time but sacrifice in perpetuity to maintain their delusion.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Okay, if you're going to keep clinging to this, then I'm going to pull it apart.

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You realize you've yet to succeed in pulling anything I've ever discussed with you apart, right? You've failed again.

The first thing out of Venat's mouth is that no one will believe her. The other mentions are just her own supposition and fears, not facts. She quickly boards the S.S. Fulfill the Time Traveler's Tale.
The idea that Hermes is needed to stop the Final Days might be true... but if it's really about saving the world, they can pull the memories of how to create Entelechies from him with the Echo, that they can use at will. A tool that has served us hundreds of times to get information we have no other way to get, and we get it by scriptwriter's grace. This is the reverse. The characters that have the power to do that at will do not do it because it would destroy the plot. There is no other, actual reason that they don't.

We also didn't know what we needed and succeeded after SHE gauged our potential. If besting her was a good earmark, then she would have what she needs already. Whoops.

As far as number 2 down there, you're forgetting that those civilizations are contemporary with our own, or at least a few thousand years after the events of the Final Days. If she went back then, with a fleet of supporters and their own entelechies, then there wouldn't be any dragons or Omicrons yet. It's also a bastardization of the Ancients' live on your part to assume that there aren't enough among them that have life experience similar to that of the Scions... a band of teens to 30 somethings. What rot. Besides the hypothetical supposes the making of new entelechies to directly combat/interface with Dynamis. Oh and don't forget, Ancients wield creation magicks too. Just as Emet and Hyth made a field of flowers, the Ancients if brought to Ultima Thule and giving it any sort of weird form to walk upon could create using the aether in their bodies walk ways or jetpacks or whatever they desire.

Plan Zodiark only arrives due to Venat not informing anyone about what she knows, full stop. That is the plan that meets a crisis that the Convocation does not know the origin of. It in no way combats Meteion directly. It is not a plan for the problem source, because it is a plan that explicitly lacks full knowledge of the problem source. Plan Hydaelyn is the only plan in game that is actually acting with full knowledge.

Actually, the civilizations were confirmed to be contemporary to the Ancients, not us. When Meteion's report starts listing worlds, she gives both a Greek numeric designation and a description of what she finds; a few of these descriptions line up with civilizations we find in Ultima Thule and the Dead Ends; there's descriptions that match both the Ea and the Plenty, and both number and description that match the Nekropolis and, perhaps most clearly, the dragons (one of the first she mentions, in fact), which also implicitly places the Omicrons back then, too. So, yes, we do explicitly know that most of the worlds imitated by Meteion in Ultima Thule were worlds found in the surveying; which means that reasonably speaking, yes, Ultima Thule would have been close enough to identical in both periods--which means that the Ancients would have had the, to them, insurmountable obstacle of the dragons, who will only listen to proof that they do not have.

Then there's the matter of interacting with them, to make progress through the space. That isn't something they can do, because it requires both speaking from the heart and the ability to interact with dynamis--or, if you will, both magical and psychological empathy. This supposed Ancient version of the plan would get nowhere, since it separates the two; you can't get the knowledgeable and understanding Ancients to interact with dynamis, and the dynamis-capable people can't speak from the heart since their lives have been short and artificial.

But speaking of what Venat says... well, I jumped online to check 'the first thing out of Venat's mouth' after you leave Ktisis. Which I'd recommend you do, too, because it's actually this:

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"I'm fine. Just a little tired."

"Can it be true? Are we the only ones left who see beauty in the world--in life? Are the stars above no more than husks of fallen civilizations?"

"And yet... I feel her. Though she is unimaginably distant, I feel Meteion's presence--and the place whereto we must go."

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That's not stating anything resembling a difficulty in convincing people. Rather, it's her own stunned disbelief; she understands what she heard was the truth, but struggles to immediately come to terms with it.

But while I was in there, I grabbed some quotes from the very next cutscene, where I remembered she talked about her plan.

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"In spite of this, we cannot allow the report that set this calamity into motion to become common knowledge. Were the masses to learn the fates of the other stars, I fear the situation would spiral out of our control. I must carefully consider who can be trusted, and bring them into the fold.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't hesitate to call upon the Fourteen. However, it was the desire for a fair determination that drove Hermes to attempt to erase our memories; were he made aware of his actions, there is no telling whether he would remain a friend or become a foe.

Alternately, we might try to alienate him from the Convocation. Yet in doing so, we would deprive ourselves of a brilliant mind who would be invaluable in the crises to come. Quite the dilemma... which is why I must work independently of the Convocation."

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Which... hey, look at that. She has to be selective with who she tells because such terrifying news would bring widespread panic if broadly distributed, and can't tell the Convocation because that would set Hermes off. So, she has to go about her plan in secret, bringing in only trusted people to work on a plan that will save the world, despite the misgivings of the Ancients.


I don't like having to correct the record this hard or this often; I'm far more interested in the actual moral question of 'did Venat make the right choice', I actually think that's a really compelling discussion that you could come at from several directions. But it's just not possible to have that conversation while basic facts are being misrepresented, to cause complications to appear where there are none.

This whole argument seems to center on Hermes, who I have repeatedly pointed out was not necessary, but since it apparently bears repeating again, Elidibus says, before we go to Elpis and learn about dynamis, "Your understanding of what caused the Final Days is consistent with our own." Hermes didn't bring jack to the Convocation about dynamis so, no, this is not an acceptable excuse for Venat. It's something she should've already known too since it's been made abundantly clear since ShB that the Ancients - including Hermes/Fandaniel - had no idea what caused the Final Days, in fact, the whole point of the adventure in Eplis was to figure that out. It's amazing to me that this was even one of her reasons because it's completely illogical. As for Hermes becoming a foe, that assumes anyone tells him anything, which they have no reason to because he doesn't share anything that we don't already know with the Convocation. He should've just been apprehended, imprisoned, and never told why.

As for the second point, telling people about the dead worlds in space has little to do with the Final Days. The only thing it explains is why Meteion decided to become a nihilist, which is not a necessary piece of information. "One of Hermes creations went nuts and decided everything needs to die." End of story.

The short answer is: no. Venat didn't make the right choice. It was a morally reprehensible one that would be completely unjustifiable in any other situation where someone withheld potentially life saving information. I'm not 100% sure, but that might actually be a crime in our society.

Meteion can corrupt the Ancients creation magic and turn it against them, I don't think they can't create their way out of this. They have to go themselves, and the Ancient hit-squad sent to Ultima Thule to whack Meteion gets to use basically stronger versions of the same magic as us, since their creation magic won't work properly, they also get hampered by having zero ability to manipulate dynamis.

So they get there, get out their spaceship, and then die because it's not even inhabitable and nothing prevents Meteion just unmaking you till Thancred turns into a ghost and does a lil dynamis manipulation on the place.

They could try creating more Entelechies, get the info out of Hermes somehow I guess, but the first batch sent up literally thought 'well this is sh*t' and decided to try and destroy the Universe, so that seems a risky gambit. Meteion is also already out there, capable of turning creations into monsters than eat Ancients, so... double risky gambit. You might end up basically sending her a bunch of convenient ammo packs.

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In short:
I don't think sending more creations after her would work.
I don't think the Ancients going after her themselves would work.
I also don't think splitting the world and hoping that several millennia of sundered mortality inures the inhabitants to suffering is a great plan, but I suppose it was the best Venat could come up with.

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Originally Posted by Jemachu

I do wonder if the ancients really had no ability to manipulate dynamis. After beating Hydaelyn's trial and she asks us about Azem's crystal she says "it is thy hopes and prayers that enable Azem's invocations and give them life", so dynamis? When we receive the crystal from Hythlodaeus he says the crystal holds a singular invocation of Azem's own making; so if they made a spell that specifically utilises dynamis to call their allies, surely they can use it to some extent? Or Azem was a singularity? Even so though, why then could Azem not defeat Meteion? I hope when we find out more about Azem it will make things clearer, I also still want more specifics on what they were even doing in the Final Days considering they left Venat on read.

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Maybe she means us specifically? As in, we should not be able to use that incantation because we are not an Ancient and we are not the Azem, but our hopes and prayers literally force it to work anyway. Would also function as further proof of our ability to utilize dynamis, which would add to our case that we're able to fight Meteion on somewhat fairer ground than the Ancients were.

Or alternatively, maybe she just means it in the original more metaphorical way?

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Originally Posted by DarkKiru

So one of the bigger questions I sort of thought of; from a practical non-ideological standpoint, was sundering the star really necessary?

A sundered Zodiark, with only 7 rejoinings (even when he had NO rejoinings at one point); was able to hold The Final Days at bay for over 12,000 years with no real sign of faltering in the slightest. Wouldn't it stand to reason that full power unsundered Zodiark could just hold Meteion's dynamis wave back for pretty much all of eternity? Making the sundering pretty much pointless for non-ideological reasons.

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Considering we find out in Ultima Thule that Meteion was speeding up the Heat Death of the Universe with Dynamis, no. She was always going to get Etheirys unless she was actively dealt with.

The Ancients turtling behind Zodiark isnt a stalemate for her, its just a road block she would eventually be able to break one way or the other

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

This whole argument seems to center on Hermes,

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What you've forgotten is that Elidibus didn't know the actual inciting incident of the Final Days. His knowledge of the events around Elpis in particular was supplemented by the soul crystals we gave him--but remember that he only knew those events from the memories of the Emet-Selch and Fandaniel crystals, whose memories of Ktisis were erased.

So, yes. At that point, our understanding of what caused the Final Days was consistent; both sides knew about dynamis/akasa, but neither knew about Meteion, so both sides basically just knew 'something made the dynamis freak out'. Remember that the reason Elidibus sent us to Elpis wasn't because we needed to learn more than that, but because we are in the memories of Elpis he's got (presumably in passing from either Emet-Selch or Fandaniel, but Pandaemonium might give other explanations).

As I have pointed out several times, Hermes was an important person to have around because he was the only in-depth expert in dynamis that happened to have a position of power at the time. This not only meant that he was able to recognize and act on the problem--remember that dynamis is an esoteric field of study--but also let him manufacture an effective solution. If you will, picture designing Zodiark to be a bit like designing a nuclear reactor; sure, the two of us can probably grasp the fundamental concepts at play, but you really want an actual nuclear physicist to draw the thing up. And in this case, there's only one nuclear physicist, and he's got some mental health problems.

And yes, telling people about the space deaths probably isn't necessary, but the important part she's explaining to people--'something from out in deep space is trying to murder our entire planet'--is probably far more depressing. And we know that the Ancients deal with depressing news real badly. You kind of also have to be careful with saying 'and it's Hermes' fault', because again, he actually is needed, and the last thing you need is to roil up an angry mob at the guy.

It's best to remember a lot of the game's stated facts, because otherwise you'll be wasting time trying to poke open holes that you don't realize have actually been filled. It'll admit that's real damn hard, though, so sometimes it's best to take the game's word for the direction it's pointing.

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Originally Posted by Slatersev

Considering we find out in Ultima Thule that Meteion was speeding up the Heat Death of the Universe with Dynamis, no. She was always going to get Etheirys unless she was actively dealt with.

The Ancients turtling behind Zodiark isnt a stalemate for her, its just a road block she would eventually be able to break one way or the other

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The sundering had multiple purposes.

1. To create more dynamis-capable people, because right now, Ancients can't do much of anything.
2. To ensure that the Ancients wouldn't keep going down the road of sacrificing things to Zodiark to bring back a now-unattainable paradise. By the time she actually did the sundering (after the 5.2 Anamnesis recording), the Ancients were on the third round of sacrifices, and by the time you're doing it a third time you start to question what's stopping the fourth.
3. To weaken Zodiark and get him out of the immediate picture while keeping the defense, because it's starting to look like people can't be trusted with that lever.

Zodiark made a stalemate, that yes, Meteion might've eventually cut through of her own volition (in all honestly, we don't actually have evidence for that being inevitable). But... well, is the stalemate a solution? The Ancients were starting to sacrifice the planet itself to Zodiark to pursue an illusion of comfort. Would they have stopped? Were the Ancients on their way to what we saw of the Plenty, destroying their own planet for a utopia that they can't even enjoy? If that's what you're protecting from Meteion, what is even going to be left when she eventually breaks through? Will what remains even be worth protecting?

None of those are rhetorical questions. I'm not inherently declaring a stance here, I'm laying out the things that need to be considered.

From a practical standpoint, sundering the star was the only way to make sure the fight could ever reach Meteion. The question you're answering is really more of a moral extension of it, 'was fighting Meteion needed', or perhaps more pointedly, 'was fighting Meteion worth it'. Personally, I think the answer is 'yes', but it's not a question with only one good answer.

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Originally Posted by Slatersev

The Ancients turtling behind Zodiark isnt a stalemate for her, its just a road block she would eventually be able to break one way or the other

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She was able to break it but very slowly. I can remember a cutscene in that Yshtola(?) tells the player that the overall amount of aether on the planet decreases and they don't know the reason for it. So the final days would still happen, but later.

Cheers

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Originally Posted by Larirawiel

She was able to break it but very slowly. I can remember a cutscene in that Yshtola(?) tells the player that the overall amount of aether on the planet decreases and they don't know the reason for it. So the final days would still happen, but later.

Cheers

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This, assuming you're talking about the scene before ShB, is related to the Ascians attempting to join the first with the source and not to the Final Days. I don't think there was any evidence of Zodiark's shield failing at any point with him still alive.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

What you've forgotten is that Elidibus didn't know the actual inciting incident of the Final Days. His knowledge of the events around Elpis in particular was supplemented by the soul crystals we gave him--but remember that he only knew those events from the memories of the Emet-Selch and Fandaniel crystals, whose memories of Ktisis were erased.

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Elidibus doesn't need to know about Elpis to tell the WoL what Fandaniel did during the Final Days.

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As I have pointed out several times, Hermes was an important person to have around because he was the only in-depth expert in dynamis that happened to have a position of power at the time. This not only meant that he was able to recognize and act on the problem--remember that dynamis is an esoteric field of study--but also let him manufacture an effective solution.

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I'm aware, it's been your consistent fallback despite nothing in the game corroborating it, otherwise it might be a convincing counter. At most I'll agree that perhaps Venat assumed that would be the case, again, with no evidence, which given her poor judgement probably shouldn't be surprising.

Unfortunately, Fandaniel as a character exists separate from anyone who could definitively say whether or not he ever mentioned dynamis. Since there is no proof, it's just conjecture. Elidibus is the closest we've gotten and he only credits him for discovering the Final Days was manifesting were where currents were weak, which was something we already knew. Venat could've easily tapped Emet with that information who would've investigated it and found it to be true so, again, Hermes was not needed.

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If you will, picture designing Zodiark to be a bit like designing a nuclear reactor; sure, the two of us can probably grasp the fundamental concepts at play, but you really want an actual nuclear physicist to draw the thing up. And in this case, there's only one nuclear physicist, and he's got some mental health problems.

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Okay, I'm going to need a source on Fandaniel being the architect of Zodiark. I may have missed or forgotten some information somewhere, but all I recall is that Zodiark was designed specifically with a dark aspect to bring activity to the areas where the currents were weak.

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And yes, telling people about the space deaths probably isn't necessary, but the important part she's explaining to people--'something from out in deep space is trying to murder our entire planet'--is probably far more depressing. And we know that the Ancients deal with depressing news real badly. You kind of also have to be careful with saying 'and it's Hermes' fault', because again, he actually is needed, and the last thing you need is to roil up an angry mob at the guy.

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Who takes depressing news well? The Ancients were intelligent and cared about their star (to the extent 75% of them were willing to give up their lives for it), I saw no reason to believe them incapable of pulling themselves together to deal with a crisis. And, no, that horrible post-Elpis scene was not it. You don't walk up to people experiencing that level of devastation and tell them they're handling their trauma and grief wrong, it's incredibly tone deaf.

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It's best to remember a lot of the game's stated facts, because otherwise you'll be wasting time trying to poke open holes that you don't realize have actually been filled. It'll admit that's real damn hard, though, so sometimes it's best to take the game's word for the direction it's pointing.

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I take things literally and at face value, can't speak for anyone else who sees things that aren't there.

Venat's reasoning can be summed up in two points:

1. "I don't want to cause a panic."
2. "We still need Hermes' expertise on dynamis."

Given one depressed Ancient inadvertently ended up creating what became a truly omnicidal menace, I can't see a whole society of them knowing their end is inevitably nigh especially considering they'd rather kill themselves than confront their grief ending well; and like it or not Hermes was the foremost expert on dynamis and entelechies, and said expertise would be needed to see them through the Final Days crisis (implicitly, to help fashion Zodiark).

No, I don't believe turtling behind Zodiark forever was a proper solution. Even if his aetheric barrier lasted indefinitely, the Ancients would more than likely have gone the way of the Plenty once they reached their "perfect paradise... free from sorrow," given they were already doing that on an individual level.

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Originally Posted by Larirawiel

She was able to break it but very slowly. I can remember a cutscene in that Yshtola(?) tells the player that the overall amount of aether on the planet decreases and they don't know the reason for it. So the final days would still happen, but later.

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That's not totally accurate, but it does bring up another plot hole I've never seen anyone else point out. (Guess those only matter when you disagree with a character's reasoning.)

The dip in aetheric levels across the planet was due to the influx of Light / Umbral aspected aether from the First slowing the world's aetherial circulation. Shadowbringers reveals to us this is due to the Rejoining process, whereby a reflection's aether seeps into the Source, causing an aetheric imbalance, after which a Calamity is triggered on the Source to complete the process. (Apropos of which, wasn't the lower aether levels hinted at in 2.5, which got lost in the drama of Wilred's murder, the Braves' treachery, and the disastrous banquet? I didn't forget, it just wasn't addressed.)

The problem is Y'shtola sees this as evidence that a Calamity is nigh due to the same thing happening before Dalamud's fall... but that Calamity was Dark / Astral aspected, so aether levels should have risen across the planet.