Tales from the Dawn #3: "A Question of Life" (Hermes)

Yeah, I generally agree these days that calling anything done in most of the Zodiark/Hydaelyn conflict 'genocide' is generally not helpful, (I've used it in the past as a descriptor but would not any more) because those acts are so bananas-crazy fantastical that they don't seem real or relatable as crimes. Which is to their benefit, because it means they can exist more as an abstract that serves what the story asks for us. This is not true of events around, say, the Garlean Empire, which are very much akin to real-world atrocities and so feel like it's appropriate to use the real-world crimes to describe them.

That's not a discredit to the Garlean story, that's a story very much worth telling, and for the most part done very well. But it does make Emet-Selch a... misfire, for me. I can't treat him in the same way as the other Ascians for doing an abstract bad-thing when he's explicitly responsible for very non-abstract and relatable bad things.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Yeah, I generally agree these days that calling anything done in most of the Zodiark/Hydaelyn conflict 'genocide' is generally not helpful, (I've used it in the past as a descriptor but would not any more) because those acts are so bananas-crazy fantastical that they don't seem real or relatable as crimes. Which is to their benefit, because it means they can exist more as an abstract that serves what the story asks for us. This is not true of events around, say, the Garlean Empire, which are very much akin to real-world atrocities and so feel like it's appropriate to use the real-world crimes to describe them.

That's not a discredit to the Garlean story, that's a story very much worth telling, and for the most part done very well. But it does make Emet-Selch a... misfire, for me. I can't treat him in the same way as the other Ascians for doing an abstract bad-thing when he's explicitly responsible for very non-abstract and relatable bad things.

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I agree in principle that using the term 'genocide' to describe stuff in a video game generally feels a bit over-the-top - I only did it indirectly earlier for that reason. However, I think it's obvious that the writers intend the players to take at least the Rejoinings as acts of literal and condemnable mass murder. Y'shtola literally says "you have murdered millions, and that is something we cannot condone" to Emet-Selch after his big Rejoining powerpoint presentation. His role in the Garlean Empire rarely even comes up in terms of their contempt for him.

Why the writers seem comfortable firmly pushing this framing on the Rejoinings but not the Sundering goes back to the strange writing around Venat/Hydaelyn in general, where the Main Scenario Team seems in disagreement with itself as to whether she should be seen as a pure savior goddess or the other side to Emet's coin, with Yoshi-P openly getting a little defensive about her character in interviews. But that conversation has been had recently already.

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Originally Posted by Brinne

I mean. Okay.

It's weird to me to say you can't take the eradication of a race and culture seriously as 'genocide' simply because the methodology is fantastical, in what has always been a fantasy story. Regardless of how you want to phrase it or handwave it as "taking away godhood", Venat's actions deliberately resulted in the extremely premature destruction of the Ancients both physically and mentally, and she then continued to go on deliberately attempting to erase them from history altogether. This is not something fantastical to me - the latter part in particular is very harrowing in terms of real world atrocities and parallels.

To me, I don't see much distinction between saying "Venat's actions can't be described as genocide because they're too fantastical" and "the Allagan Empire's actions can't be described as genocide because they're too fantastical" because we don't have alien dragons or primals or Tempering or the capacity to create artificial moons with a combination of all of the above to use as a battery. Murder is murder, the forceful ending of one's life is the forceful ending of one's life, regardless of if you're using weird magic as the means to carry it out. And in-game, the Ancients are portrayed as being equally human, full of quirks and idiosyncrasies and emotions and textured relationships and hopes and dreams and frustrations and aspirations, as any other NPC group we interact with. The thematic final word on them in Ultima Thule (from G'raha, if I'm recalling correctly) once again reinforces that they were simply people. And as a people, they were snuffed out wholesale in an act of violence.

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Quoting this post because it shouldn't languish at the bottom of a page.

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Originally Posted by Brinne

and she then continued to go on deliberately attempting to erase them from history altogether.

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When did Venat do this, exactly? Traces of the culture of the ancients seem to exist all over the First, and presumably the other shards too, and Venat made no effort to say, cover up the murals depicting the final days or get rid of the still standing ancient facilities under the ocean.

The only reason no trace the ancients can be found on the source is the seven calamities that have occured there and subsequently buried it all deep underground.

As for the rest of your post, the reason I can look at Allag as genocidal even though they use fantasical means is because a more technologically advanced society enslaving the people of another society has plenty of historical analogues.

But with Venat, splitting the souls of nigh-immortal godlike beings into 14 ordinary mortals has nothing that corresponds to it in history, and has all its analogues in mythology instead.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

When did Venat do this, exactly?

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I mean. She made up an entire fake story for the Sundering where she and Zodiark were actual, for-real Gods and the Ancients didn't even exist, which she tells the player during the 3.X patches and presumably been telling people since civilization was set back to zero by her actions. She admits to deceiving you on that basis at the start of Endwalker.

During the Omega quests, the Watcher outright says that her goal was for the Ancients to be forgotten so the knowledge wouldn't burden contemporary humanity.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

But with Venat, splitting the souls of nigh-immortal godlike beings into 14 ordinary mortals has nothing that corresponds to it in history, and has all its analogues in mythology instead.

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A significant plot element in Heavensward that the story intends the player to understand as a serious act of cultural extermination by the villain is the population of a nation slowly being turned into dragons. Elsewhere in the same expansion, the Allagan Empire has stolen the gods of three nations and sealed them in a floating island to harness their power, which is framed as an act of imperialist violence.

To be blunt, I don't think there's much of a line to draw between the fantastical framing that covers half of FFXIV's takes on more serious ideas and what happens with the Sundering and the Rejoinings. It's pseudo-mythological weirdness all the way down.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

It's arguable if Venat did commit acts of violence at all, in Venat's case, her "violence" can be seen as the same kind of violence that a surgeon commits when he has to amputate an infected limb.

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Do you even realize that this is nearly exactly the same kind of rhetoric people love to condemn Emet-Selch for? Seriously, what's the big bloody difference between this:

"Emet-Selch is not guilty of murder, for those he killed were not truly people"

And this:

"Venat is not guilty of murder, because she was merely stripping humanity of a limb not killing"

?

Even then, following your own established train of logic; a surgeon who divested every human on the Earth of an arm or leg simultaneously would still be seen by the world at large as a crazed criminal who divested all of humankind of a crucial limb they require to keep living in the manner in which they have up to this moment. Nobody at all is going to argue in favour of this surgeon beyond the insane and immoral, and he would be condemned at large even should he state his goal to be "I did this to benefit mankind, they were relying on their right arms far too much and this reliance was bringing down their quality of life."

Tl;dr Jigsaw's a villain, and you're not making Venat look all that much better with statements like these.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

Conversation is moving faster than my comfortable speed of posting here, but this is a little screwed up. Whether or not you agree it was justified, the Sundering killed (or at least identity-deathed) everyone on the planet, many of whom were probably not even involved in the the sacrifice issue at all. It was unambiguously a violent act, and I assume even the writers accept that - there's a reason that Venat is depicted wielding a sword in the abstracted post-Elpis cutscene.

Describing the extermination of a culture or group in medical terms (amputating a gangrenous limb, cutting out a cancer, taking bitter medicine, etc) is a dehumanizing rhetorical tool to whitewash violence that has often been employed in the justification of real world instances of genocide. It's silly to say since we're talking about a video game, but you should probably be careful with that sort of thinking.

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Gonna be honest here, Lurina. I truly don't comprehend where you get all this patience.

Personally, I think you're being far too charitable and lenient on someone who just used the same kind of logic Emet-Selch used; as well as various genocidal regimes in real life human history to justify their violence and cultural erasure.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

But with Venat, splitting the souls of nigh-immortal godlike beings into 14 ordinary mortals has nothing that corresponds to it in history, and has all its analogues in mythology instead.

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At the risk of falling into Extreme Hot Take territory, even putting aside the "purposefully wiping them from history" aspect, I will go ahead and say that it's actually not difficult at all for me to think of historical analogues in terms of "deliberately destroying a race/culture and then using its broken-down components as resources towards building a different culture more to one's liking."

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Originally Posted by Brinne

At the risk of falling into Extreme Hot Take territory, even putting aside the "purposefully wiping them from history" aspect, I will go ahead and say that it's actually not difficult at all for me to think of historical analogues in terms of "deliberately destroying a race/culture and then using its broken-down components as resources towards building a different culture more to one's liking."

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As I've said many a time, we the Warrior of Light/player character are ourselves erasing the Ancients and their deeds from history. The Unending Codex is is LITERALLY the Warrior of Light's personally penned journal, and everything Zodiark and the Ancients did has for some inane reason been attributed to Hydaelyn instead. And the only thing written about the Ancients is Fandaniel's villainy. We're literally doctoring history as we speak.

Like Mother, like Child~

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Originally Posted by SannaR

For me it would be similar to people getting upset that others aren't upset about the Titanic sinking at the end of watching any movie or mini series about the boat. We know it has to happen or it becomes an AU.

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That's a good analogy, and perhaps even more for the mindset that has to go into the writing of a plot like this. The boat has to sink in the end, and the writers can only adjust the details around it.

They're not going to decide "oh, we like our characters too much and don't want to kill them off, so we'll write an ending where they dodge the iceberg and all live happily after". Firstly, the characters only exist to serve the plot of the ship sinking, and secondly, even if they did safely reach port there's no guarantee their lives would go well afterwards.

I also think that – whether we believe it as an audience or not – the writers might be coming from the concept that Venat was correct (and not vastly overspeculating) in her belief that her society was on the verge of destroying itself anyway, in which case there would be no kindness in creating a second timeline where they are about to run themselves off a cliff and go through a different variety of suffering and total society death.

I don't think it particularly plausible but I have the same opinion of the fate of the other worlds that was handed to us in the story as a factual thing that inevitably happened to all societies. And if that was the mindset of the writers then there was really no good reason to create a split timeline where the options are "the Sundering" and "nothing survives".

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Originally Posted by SannaR

I am interested in what happens at the end of Pandeamonium as Elidibus did mention a few times a promise they made to someone about something.

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I still prefer to interpret that as the oath he must have sworn upon joining the Convocation, as that is among the remaining shreds of his memories that we glimpse during 5.3. Everything he is doing is focused on fulfilling his mission, which stems from those promises he made to act in accordance with his position as Elidibus – and by the end he can't even remember who he made the promise to, only that he needs to follow it.

I actually will be disappointed if it gets retconned into Pandæmonium.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

Also, Venat was operating with future knowledge that Zodiark would eventually die and the souls inside him freed, too.

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That's a good point. Assuming she hits a point where she is resigned to being stuck on her foretold path, she knows that part of that sequence of events will free the souls eventually. She's not dooming them to be trapped eternally.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

I assume the devs thought that if it was outright said that the 3rd sacrifices were sapient, there would be no morally grey area anymore and Venat would be easily declared the heroine and the Convocation the villains, I guess?

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That could be the case. I feel like whatever is going on with their reluctance to explain, it either comes down to not having decided or some kind of ongoing creative argument where different people want it to go different ways and they've decided the solution is to not tackle it, regardless of what that does to the narrative.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

I dunno, Emet-Selch's line about whether half of the sundered would sacrifice their lives for the other kind of loses its weight if what he actually meant was "would half of you agree to be temporarily inconvienced until the other half figures out how to fix it?"

It kind of cheapens the first and second sacrifice if the ancients going into it always knew it was a temporary affair. I always figured that the third sacrifice was something that the remaining ancients came up with after being incapable of accepting the loss of the ones that died to bring about Zodiark.

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I agree on that. At the point of Shadowbringers there was a lot we didn't know (and the devs possibly hadn't invented) about exactly how souls work, and the sacrifices within Zodiark specifically. The closest analogue we had was the Ananta queen trying to revive her daughter through Lakshmi's power, in which case we were told that her soul was unreclaimable, so it seemed as if the entire idea of "retrieving the souls from Zodiark" might be a similarly futile endeavour that the Ascians had fixated on all this time. The full tragedy would be that after all they did, their friends were still utterly lost to them.

I don't think we even knew for certain that Zodiark contained souls specifically, only aether. I had in mind that it might have only been their body-aether that went into Zodiark while their souls were released to the Lifestream, though I'm not sure if there was a specific quote to imply that.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

That's a good analogy, and perhaps even more for the mindset that has to go into the writing of a plot like this. The boat has to sink in the end, and the writers can only adjust the details around it.

They're not going to decide "oh, we like our characters too much and don't want to kill them off, so we'll write an ending where they dodge the iceberg and all live happily after". Firstly, the characters only exist to serve the plot of the ship sinking, and secondly, even if they did safely reach port there's no guarantee their lives would go well afterwards.

I also think that – whether we believe it as an audience or not – the writers might be coming from the concept that Venat was correct (and not vastly overspeculating) in her belief that her society was on the verge of destroying itself anyway, in which case there would be no kindness in creating a second timeline where they are about to run themselves off a cliff and go through a different variety of suffering and total society death.

I don't think it particularly plausible but I have the same opinion of the fate of the other worlds that was handed to us in the story as a factual thing that inevitably happened to all societies. And if that was the mindset of the writers then there was really no good reason to create a split timeline where the options are "the Sundering" and "nothing survives".





I still prefer to interpret that as the oath he must have sworn upon joining the Convocation, as that is among the remaining shreds of his memories that we glimpse during 5.3. Everything he is doing is focused on fulfilling his mission, which stems from those promises he made to act in accordance with his position as Elidibus – and by the end he can't even remember who he made the promise to, only that he needs to follow it.

I actually will be disappointed if it gets retconned into Pandæmonium.

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I would agree with that if it wasn't for when he starts to try and remember whatever it is he promised happen. They both happen soon after we get him to start talking about other things. I think one even happens soon after he has a thought about Azem. Or at least he'd know it was about Azem if his memory wasn't Swiss cheese. He then gets angry and hops back onto to the nope I need to kill you horse. The angry could be due to not having the ability to remember, him getting angry at himself for questioning his choice to not look at those memory stones, or whatever amount of tempering is going on. For even though he's a primal he also is different as he also might have not been part of the fuel at the start? Idk they don't ever hint at how he became the heart just that he was and we know that Zodiark can exist without its heart. So he could have also been part of his summoners. This just feels like a please don't overthink or too deeply about this.

A shame that when (most of) us ascian simp, as some posters love to call us, have no problem admitting that rejoinings are genocide, venat's stans are unwilling to do the same. Instead of admitting that sundering is genocide, they go "well actually-", some even compare it to "amputating infected limb", which is insensitive as hell btw.

On the subject of whether or not fantasy elements count as genocide or not, I'd say it's a pretty clear cut situation. A key definition of genocide involves the deliberate destruction and inability for a targeted race or culture to persist. How, exactly, such a goal comes about is largely irrelevant to the definition. It's the consequences of the act and whether it is intentional that matter the most.

I don't think we can brush it off as 'fantastical' either. If someone were to unleash a zombie plague upon a race or nation and it resulted in the deaths and reanimation of those targeted then technically it could be said that those people still exist in some form because they're still shambling about as undead corpses.

Yet those targeted no longer have their memories, culture or original forms. For all intents and purposes, they no longer exist as they did.

Had the Sundering been an accident then the situation would have been murkier - but it was not an accident. It was a deliberate act.

As an aside, it's always interesting when a thread like this gets so many new pages. I keep seeing certain posters declare that they're 'done' discussing the Ancients and/or that they'd rather not get more additional lore related to them. It's a bit confusing, then, when those same posters then emerge at the first opportunity to...continue discussing the Ancients.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

As an aside, it's always interesting when a thread like this gets so many new pages. I keep seeing certain posters declare that they're 'done' discussing the Ancients and/or that they'd rather not get more additional lore related to them. It's a bit confusing, then, when those same posters then emerge at the first opportunity to...continue discussing the Ancients.

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Now, now, don't be too harsh on them. How else are they going to make the lore forum seems alive then?

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Originally Posted by SentioftheHoukai

Even then, following your own established train of logic; a surgeon who divested every human on the Earth of an arm or leg simultaneously would still be seen by the world at large as a crazed criminal who divested all of humankind of a crucial limb they require to keep living in the manner in which they have up to this moment. Nobody at all is going to argue in favour of this surgeon beyond the insane and immoral, and he would be condemned at large even should he state his goal to be "I did this to benefit mankind, they were relying on their right arms far too much and this reliance was bringing down their quality of life."

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One only need ask Guildivain of the SGE quest line how that ended for him, in his bid to alter his experimental subjects through force to "improve" them.

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Originally Posted by Thenightvortex

Really, asking if the Ancient society was perfect is doubly useless because for one, even if it wasn’t perfect, that doesn't justify the act of genocide that Venat enacted in order to try and “save” it.

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Nor can anything justify the genocide the Ancients were willing to perform on the new life to bring back the old. At this point I think we can all agree that after the Final Days, morality was thrown out the door.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

We don't see any apparently-sapient creatures out and about in Elpis (although, again, we keep getting quests in the Sundered world that establish whatever random species we've been murdering to make hair regrowth tonic has actually been sapient all along, with the game not seeming to regard this as particularly weird, which suggests some awkward double standards on the part of the writers), just Meteion and the Lyssa, which we hear about second-hand.

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But once again those quests that end with that realization are also largely paired with a newfound commitment to protect that sapient life. Take the quests in Labyrinthos for example where we find out a small troll is capable of speech. As soon as this is realized multiple characters spring into action to help them, and the questline ends with them receiving treatment befitting a sapient being. We don’t see that reflected in Elpis, where once again the plan for the Lyssa was to make it more intelligent for further experimentation.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

Meteion is a personal project of Hermes that only a handful of people know anything about, while the sapience of the Lyssa is clearly an accident - like you said, the note we find describes the Ancients as being delighted and surprised. Even when it comes to Familars, all the other ones we encounter in game are just animals. Even Venat's proto-Loporitt doesn't speak.

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They then go on to say it should be given vocal cords on a whim. I think that’s where I’m getting wires crossed.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

I don't think there's any basis to think they had some kind of broader servant class of sapient creations in the same way as the Quarians. Again, there's a whole quest chain where the researchers are fascinated (and occasionally a little worried) by your apparent intelligence as a special case, and seem a little taken aback when you do things like express discomfort with their creation-testing process; as soon as you speak to them 'on their level', they start questioning themselves. While the Ancients seem sort of flippant about the issue, it seems more like they're naive than exploitative. They haven't fully considered the implications of co-existing with other life capable of advanced thought because it's so uncommon.

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Is it because it’s uncommon or because they simply aren’t concerned enough to consider it a problem? No one reacts to Meteions free will, a fact Hermes is willing to tell random people, as if it were novel or special. Our interactions where we question others doesn’t yield anything, it either ends with them being surprised by our abilities or patting us on the head and talking about our “novel” perspective. I guess I’m struggling to see evidence that the Ancients considered the ethics of intelligence. I think they are definitely capable of doing so, I just don’t think their value system includes that consideration.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

You're not wrong about it being kinda irresponsible, but it's not institutional slavery.

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Sure, but I’d say it gives Hermes perspective more weight when that’s a problem.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

I mean, Venat and her followers left Zodiark intact with all the Ancient souls inside who seemed to have been operating under the assumption they'd eventually be freed.

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We’re they? Emets speech in Amaurot about how moral and amazing the Ancients compared to the Sundered would become kind of nonsensical if that was always the plan. It wouldn’t be as a great a sacrifice after all.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

You can wade through the tangled and messy writing of the Sundering scenario in general and say that it was necessary for Venat's plan to keep Zodiark alive regardless of the morals of the issue, but it's still less walking away from Omelas and more taking issue with which baby is being tortured.

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I can see your point, but I’m always going to hold that volunteering is different from being volunteered. Because I like hypotheticals too much, imagine your fighting a war and need a group to sacrifice themselves to end it. A number of people volunteer and head off to a roaring success, an incredible moral act that should be honored. However, afterwards you find out you can retrieve them, but doing so would require you to send another group. This time though there’s no one to volunteer, and you must choose between sending people without asking or not going at all. What’s the moral choice?

To me, the fact that the initial group volunteered means they are the moral choice to leave behind. If there were means to retrieve them that didn’t require another sacrifice then sure, but since there’s not and since the only other option is sacrifice more, the answer is clear.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

As an aside, it's always interesting when a thread like this gets so many new pages. I keep seeing certain posters declare that they're 'done' discussing the Ancients and/or that they'd rather not get more additional lore related to them. It's a bit confusing, then, when those same posters then emerge at the first opportunity to...continue discussing the Ancients.

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How about you stop vagueposting Theo and say this to those people directly.

It's a bit worrying how quick we are to dismiss the Convocation's proposed sacrifices as 'unintelligent' life. That's the exact same party line that the Ascians used to justify the horrific atrocities that they committed against our societies over the past twelve thousand years - by claiming that we were somehow less than human.

It's difficult to buy into their jingoistic claims when you see how twisted their leadership was. Lahabrea murdered his wife, allowed his subordinates to be experimented on, and hid away the evidence at risk to his entire civilization. Mitron forcibly merged souls with his former lover against her will and tried to destroy her memories to get his way. Elidibus tried to release chemical weapons to destroy both his own armies as well as innocent civilians in Eorzea, only to run away like a coward when challenged over it. Venat robbed her society of their godhood and rendered them vulnerable to pestilence, famine, war, death, and paying taxes. Hermes not only brought about the destruction of his own civilization, but accelerated the destruction of countless others. Former Convocation members all.

And in the midst of all this, we have Emet-Selch, who not only resolutely believed in his own racial superiority, but had the gall to ask us to remember his people after he lost the battle to exterminate ours. What about the civilizations of the seven worlds that he murdered? The ones that we never had an opportunity to ever visit? Who will remember them? Who will tell their story? And we're expected to somehow prop him up as some fallen hero, to be celebrated in the very remembrance event of a calamity that he perpetuated.

No, I don't think that his kind deserves any such favours. Let them fade out of the story, and away from memory. And if we ever get the opportunity to learn about the other non-Amaurotine civilizations from the Ancient world, let's hope that their spiritualism, compassion and generosity earn them the love of the players from a standpoint of mutual respect. Enough with the Amaurotine pretenders and their hollow pride. Give us a people like the Cetra. Let's see some real caretakers of the planet.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

But once again those quests that end with that realization are also largely paired with a newfound commitment to protect that sapient life. Take the quests in Labyrinthos for example where we find out a small troll is capable of speech. As soon as this is realized multiple characters spring into action to help them, and the questline ends with them receiving treatment befitting a sapient being. We don’t see that reflected in Elpis, where once again the plan for the Lyssa was to make it more intelligent for further experimentation.

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I'm afraid I recall no such thing occuring for the vast majority of wildlife we personally extinguish in the game, and frankly one example does not a rule make. Forget the trolls for just a moment, if you please. Recall the many and numerous counterexamples in A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, Stormblood, Shadowbringers..... and oh yes, ENDWALKER ITSELF. We don't exactly stop to hold a ceremony for the unfortunate demise of every squirrel, gorilla, opo-opo and pugil that we murder for their raw materials, now do we? In Endwalker it was revealed that literally anything could be bestowed a soul and you couldn't even tell right off the bat, the process was entirely random and decided by the Lifestream which nobody can truly control. Where is all the concern for THEM, since we have since stooped to potentially sapient animals.

Or better yet, let's use Stormblood's raid auspices and Aglaia's god formes as an example! For all we know, our vicious animal slaughters could very well have inadvertently prevented the birth of countless wise and honored auspice Elders. Is this not a terrible, unforgivable crime by the same flimsy logic we so often use to condemn the Ancients? "We couldn't possibly have known" doesn't work as an excuse, because not every Ancient was as morally bankrupt as Athena. Most could also pass with the excuse "I had no idea the creation I just extinguished, and that one over there that I lobotomized last week had souls!" so why are they somehow less entitled to the ignorance and naivete that the Sundered acquire in spades?

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How about you stop vagueposting Theo and say this to those people directly.

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Gonna be honest here.... This isn't the dunk you think it is. You frankly look no better than Theo with your hyper-aggressive "Why don't you come over here and say it to my FACE!" posts. But since we're on the subject, I do seem to recall either Lurina or Brinne calling some on here out for the same thing. Vagueposting without quoting those making the arguments in order to facilitate an easier time dismantling someone's argument while they may or may not be on the forum to defend their point of view at that particular point in time. Why is it that you never seem to call Lyth, or Cleretic, or Iscah, or Kari out for the manners of behaviour you call us malicious and nefarious Zodiark Trancers out for, I wonder~

After all, we just had a example on a Juri thread not that long ago of this manner of hypocrisy, making my point all the more relevant. Find me in the Alps if I cannot pinpoint just what exactly makes your allies exempt from this manner of criticism.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

It's a bit worrying how quick we are to dismiss the Convocation's proposed sacrifices as 'unintelligent' life. That's the exact same party line that the Ascians used to justify the horrific atrocities that they committed against our societies over the past twelve thousand years - by claiming that we were somehow less than human.

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Have we already forgotten how Kari literally just used this same "party line", as you call it to justify Venat's Sundering? I mean, come on if you're gonna make insinuations like these at least apply them fairly and equally.

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And in the midst of all this, we have Emet-Selch, who not only resolutely believed in his own racial superiority, but had the gall to ask us to remember his people after he lost the battle to exterminate ours. What about the civilizations of the seven worlds that he murdered? The ones that we never had an opportunity to ever visit? Who will remember them? Who will tell their story? And we're expected to somehow prop him up as some fallen hero, to be celebrated in the very remembrance event of a calamity that he perpetuated.

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We're forced in story to do exactly this for the sake of the omnicidal murderer Venat, so you'll simply have to forgive me if I fail to not grant the same dubious honor to Emet-Selch and the Ascians Three before they became the villains they were when we ended their pitiful half-lives. What about all the lives Venat ended? Oh right, you don't care about them and their deaths were justified on the basis of how evil Amaurotians were. All of them, every last single soul on the Star. Evil, baby-murdering, opo-opo sacrificing cultists all. Kill every last one of them, nobody at all will mind. After all, you can't quite be bigoted against a race that DOESN'T EXIST~

Right?

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No, I don't think that his kind deserves any such favours. Let them fade out of the story, and away from memory. And if we ever get the opportunity to learn about the other non-Amaurotine civilizations from the Ancient world, let's hope that their spiritualism, compassion and generosity earn them the love of the players from a standpoint of mutual respect. Enough with the Amaurotine pretenders and their hollow pride. Give us a people like the Cetra. Let's see some real caretakers of the planet.

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https://i.imgur.com/3cRkxlH.gif

No thanks, apply this equally and evenly or not at all. The only way the Ancients get to be buried and forgotten is if the constant Venat toadie reminders cease as well. No other compromise will ever be deemed acceptable.

It's like Meteion said herself, the Ancients tried their very best despite themselves and yet nevertheless found themselves having failed regardless. Funny then, that this forum seems so convinced that the Sundered couldn't and haven't yet managed to resurrect and emulate literally ANY of their flaws. Personally, I smell a double standard~ ;3

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

The focus i had was less on the academic question of whether or not the actions of pre-modern societies can be characterized as genocide, but more that genocide itself is something that societies to do classes of people in a large, collaborative sense, regardless of the era it happens in.

Taking away someone's godhood, or destroying universes to smoosh fractured souls together exist in a completely different realm of abstraction to me.

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Identity death is still death, thereby the sundering is still genocide.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Nor can anything justify the genocide the Ancients were willing to perform on the new life to bring back the old. At this point I think we can all agree that after the Final Days, morality was thrown out the door.

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We don’t know what they were actually going to sacrifice. I know there’s been a lot of debate whether it’s sapient beings, animals, just life energy in general etc. Devs left it vary vague and considering that they don’t ever mention the third sacrifice as a part of Venat’s reasoning, I can only assume they did not intend it to be people with souls or “kinda forgot” about that plot point since SHB(wouldn’t be surprised tbh).

Either way, I am not claiming that the convocation were paragons of morality. They were desperate people pushed to desperate measures, I’d argue far more desperate than Venat considering they had zero knowledge of what was causing the final days.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

I mean. She made up an entire fake story for the Sundering where she and Zodiark were actual, for-real Gods and the Ancients didn't even exist, which she tells the player during the 3.X patches and presumably been telling people since civilization was set back to zero by her actions. She admits to deceiving you on that basis at the start of Endwalker.

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I mean, the 3.x stuff is kind of a continuity snarl regarding the Zodiark and Hydaelyn backstory since it was clearly written before everything else, it's kind of hard to reconcile with the story as written later, so I just chalk it up to a bit of writing weirdness rather than evidence of Venat being a sinister manipulator behind the scenes (since that clearly isn't the intention of the rest of the story, once they figured out who and what Venat actually was.)

But if you really want a Watsonian explanation for that part, it's important to remember that the WoL recounted all of thier adventures to Venat, including the parts where Emet-Selch was the one reveal the true nature of Zodiark, and what Hydaelyn had told the WoL back in 3.x. In order to perserve the timeline up to the point where the WoL travels back to Elpis, Venat has to follow that script.

But yes, she did want the ancients forgotten - but that involved simply not disseminating information about them, not actively erasing any of them. Any civilication with sufficently advanced archological tools can go digging for evidence of them, and now space-faring civilications can communicate with the Watcher and Lolopritts on the moon to learn about the ancients.

Maybe Venat should have done more to actively perserve the culture of her people, but failing to do that is far and away from intentional efforts by genocidal regimes to actively erase the cultures of people they genocided.

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Originally Posted by Thenightvortex

We don’t know what we’re they actually going to sacrifice. I know there’s been a lot of debate whether it’s sapient beings, animals, just life energy in general etc. Devs left it vary vague and considering that they don’t ever mention the third sacrifice as a part of Venat’s reasoning, I can only assume they did not intend it to be people with souls or “kinda forgot” about that plot point since SHB(wouldn’t be surprised tbh).

Either way, I am not claiming that the convocation were paragons of morality. They were desperate people pushed to desperate measures, I’d argue far more desperate than Venat considering they had zero knowledge of what was causing the final days.

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I'm still of the mindset they didn't say what the 3rd set of sacrifices were intentionally. Say they were animals, people would state the Ancients were correct and Venat never should have done what she did. State they were sapient life like people, and the Ancients were incorrect and Venat was right to do what she did. Not give an answer...and it leaves the entire area morally grey with neither side looking like the correct party. And I agree, the Convocation and Ancients were incredibly desperate to perform the sacrifices they did.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

I mean, the 3.x stuff is kind of a continuity snarl regarding the Zodiark and Hydaelyn backstory since it was clearly written before everything else, it's kind of hard to reconcile with the story as written later, so I just chalk it up to a bit of writing weirdness rather than evidence of Venat being a sinister manipulator behind the scenes (since that clearly isn't the intention of the rest of the story, once they figured out who and what Venat actually was.)

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Yeah, remember when Zodiark had HIPS?

https://i.imgur.com/Del6GKL.png

The Convocation remembers. He was a life-giver, that one. A mother, a father, and a true LGBT icon. He has no need for gender, have you seen that statue. Damn, was he ever ahead of his time.

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Maybe Venat should have done more to actively perserve the culture of her people, but failing to do that is far and away from intentional efforts by genocidal regimes to actively erase the cultures of people they genocided.

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Maybe Venat didn't personally cultivate the mythos the Sundered world built up around her, but by all the Gods above and Demons below did she ever benefit from it. She also did nothing at all to dissuade people of the idea that she was NOT in fact a "Supreme Deity" to the people who had a direct literal pipeline to God (a.k.a. Sharlayan and their Aitiascope) and straight up calls herself a "Supreme Deity" when you fight her in her trial. Recall this is the woman who gave herself wings whilst stripping her own people of them wholesale, and took their creation magicks from them and proceeded to give them to anthropomorphic rabbits that made a dungeon with a murder-death machine and never once got told a damn thing about humanity as it is now by the mother they so beloved. It really doesn't sound like Venat is any more responsible with the Creation Magicks that she alone got to keep when everyone else lost them than the other Ancients she killed were.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

I'm still of the mindset they didn't say what the 3rd set of sacrifices were intentionally. Say they were animals, people would state the Ancients were correct and Venat never should have done what she did. State they were sapient life like people, and the Ancients were incorrect and Venat was right to do what she did. Not give an answer...and it leaves the entire area morally grey with neither side looking like the correct party. And I agree, the Convocation and Ancients were incredibly desperate to perform the sacrifices they did.

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It feels like they're doing it because they want the story to be deep and controversial and debatable, but if they are doing that artificially by withholding critical information then that just feels unfair.

At this point we can see pretty clearly how irrational people are about the subject. Giving a definitive answer one way or the other would be like lighting up a cigarette two seconds after snorting gunpowder.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

I'm still of the mindset they didn't say what the 3rd set of sacrifices were intentionally. Say they were animals, people would state the Ancients were correct and Venat never should have done what she did. State they were sapient life like people, and the Ancients were incorrect and Venat was right to do what she did. Not give an answer...and it leaves the entire area morally grey with neither side looking like the correct party. And I agree, the Convocation and Ancients were incredibly desperate to perform the sacrifices they did.

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That's fine but if you concede that we really don't know what was involved, and none of the writing centres her motivation on what was involved so much as what these sacrifices would accomplish (her faction believed they'd lead to their people failing to grow in some sense), how exactly are you determining what was involved to use that term? I actually don't think the default answer would be "they were correct", because EW has never really hinged its entire case on that point in the first place - it has other wobbly foundations it tries to rest it upon. This may surprise you but I don't think these sacrifices were necessarily the best plan - whatever they were, I just don't consider them to be worthy of genociding their entire race, nor were they given the full picture to understand what potential issues there were in pressing down that path. However, it has little to do with what was being sacrificed, because it's not even remotely central to her crew's reasoning, to the extent that they even understood the full picture.

If we are going to seriously sit down and try to solve, in-universe, "what was the content of the third sacrifice" in a way that goes beyond "lol writers dodging the subject":

It's probably still fundamentally unknowable, and will be for all eternity, because in all likelihood, the actual subjects of the third sacrifice never got the chance to even come into existence.

The plan for the third sacrifice was one that would be cultivated gradually, over the long term and probably multiple generations, as the surviving Ancients slowly nurtured their planet back to life until it was "bursting with vitality." They never got the chance to do this--therefore, it's likely not even they knew what the potential third sacrifice would actually look like, beyond a general source of life energy, because we've seen multiple times the Ancients conceding that how souls manifest, and what is accepted by the star as authentic life, is a realm outside of their control.

The lives that would comprise third sacrifice never had the chance to be born to begin with. They didn't get that far. No one knew in-universe exactly what it was going to be, either, and honestly, the plan was probably to cross the bridge of the finer logistics once they'd come to it. Ultimately, the broad outline of the long-term plan never even had a chance to get rolling because Venat objected on a purely ideological basis from the very beginning.

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Originally Posted by SentioftheHoukai

I'm afraid I recall no such thing occuring for the vast majority of wildlife we personally extinguish in the game, and frankly one example does not a rule make. Forget the trolls for just a moment, if you please. Recall the many and numerous counterexamples in A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, Stormblood, Shadowbringers..... and oh yes, ENDWALKER ITSELF. We don't exactly stop to hold a ceremony for the unfortunate demise of every squirrel, gorilla, opo-opo and pugil that we murder for their raw materials, now do we? In Endwalker it was revealed that literally anything could be bestowed a soul and you couldn't even tell right off the bat, the process was entirely random and decided by the Lifestream which nobody can truly control. Where is all the concern for THEM, since we have since stooped to potentially sapient animals.

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Still haven't given me proof of nepotism Senti. But sure how about you prove that the opo opo can speak and well go from there. You want to make the basis for moral consideration be "potential" sapience. Show me an example of beings that have that that didn't aggro to us first.

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Originally Posted by SentioftheHoukai

Gonna be honest here.... This isn't the dunk you think it is. You frankly look no better than Theo with your hyper-aggressive "Why don't you come over here and say it to my FACE!" posts. But since we're on the subject, I do seem to recall either Lurina or Brinne calling some on here out for the same thing. Vagueposting without quoting those making the arguments in order to facilitate an easier time dismantling someone's argument while they may or may not be on the forum to defend their point of view at that particular point in time. Why is it that you never seem to call Lyth, or Cleretic, or Iscah, or Kari out for the manners of behaviour you call us malicious and nefarious Zodiark Trancers out for, I wonder~

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God you clearly have nothing but whataboutisms to contribute with.

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Originally Posted by Brinne

If we are going to seriously sit down and try to solve, in-universe, "what was the content of the third sacrifice" in a way that goes beyond "lol writers dodging the subject":

It's probably still fundamentally unknowable, and will be for all eternity, because in all likelihood, the actual subjects of the third sacrifice never got the chance to even come into existence.

The plan for the third sacrifice was one that would be cultivated gradually, over the long term and probably multiple generations, as the surviving Ancients slowly nurtured their planet back to life until it was "bursting with vitality." They never got the chance to do this--therefore, it's likely not even they knew what the potential third sacrifice would actually look like, beyond a general source of life energy, because we've seen multiple times the Ancients conceding that how souls manifest, and what is accepted by the star as authentic life, is a realm outside of their control.

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I have to again point to the dialogue following our fake Hyth convo.

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Y'shtola: What of you, Forename? Was aught worthy of interest said during your efforts to obtain a writ?

Alphinaud: A great sacrifice of life in exchange for their brethren's resurrection... And you say all the Ascians' scheming has been leading to this!?

All this time... But if they still mean to enact this plan, then things won't end with the Rejoining...

Y'shtola: ...Aye, I thought we knew their intentions in full: restore the world to its former glory, and, in turn, empower Zodiark to reclaim His throne as the will of the star.
Yet that was merely a step along the way. I hesitate to put it into words, but we have to assume that following the final Rejoining, the Ascians mean to draw on the lives of the Source to make their sacrifice to Zodiark.

Alphinaud: That does seem the most likely scenario. Mayhap those who ally with the Ascians would be spared that fate...

But what value is there in surviving when all our history, all our struggles will be erased? I cannot conscience such an act.

Alisaie: Of course not. And that's to say naught of what Emet-Selch plans for the Exarch's power. Do we stand by and let him threaten our future as well as our past?
We need to find him, Forename. And when we do...

Make your mark. Change the course of history in a way that's felt by those who came before, and those who came after; by everyone you've ever met.

Change things so that even my other self, dying somewhere in that future Calamity will smile and say, “I knew you would win.”

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I've seen many quote Alphinauds line, but what of the rest of it? Its clear that the Scions are concluding that the humans on the Source will be sacrificed, based solely on what fake Hyth told us. Concluding that this is an incorrect reading of that conversation, that they were intending to sacrifice anything but human beings, is to say the Scions are also wrong, which is nonsensical writing. So we are left with two choices. Either the writers were telling us the initial sacrifice were intended to be humans, or the writers of ShB and EW lost the plot several years ago.

I find it strange that they weren't more specific about that point were it truly the case pre-Sundering; moreso because it would've more strongly pushed Venat's group as being right when the story already leans in that direction to begin with.

It's all the vagueness surrounding basically everything that happens between the end of Elpis and the Sundering the that makes it hard for me to feel completely for/against either faction's course of action, though perhaps that was precisely the writer's intent.

The Scions -- Alphinaud especially -- have a bit of a record of getting things wrong, and what they do as a result of their incorrect conclusions is not always the most helpful thing. Just throwing that out there.

Oh, and uh... unrelatedly to the most immediate topic: Nier Re[in]carnation's sundering lore says hello.

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

The Scions -- Alphinaud especially -- have a bit of a record of getting things wrong, and what they do as a result of their incorrect conclusions is not always the most helpful thing. Just throwing that out there.

Oh, and uh... unrelatedly to the most immediate topic: Nier Re[in]carnation's sundering lore says hello.

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That's non-canon, you utter FOOOOOOOOL~ Filthy cutscene-skipper!

Why? Oh, uh.... I, uh... BECAUSE I SAID SO!

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

Still haven't given me proof of nepotism Senti. But sure how about you prove that the opo opo can speak and well go from there. You want to make the basis for moral consideration be "potential" sapience. Show me an example of beings that have that that didn't aggro to us first.

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Hmmmm.... How many of the Ancients creations can you prove possess souls and sapience? It sure would be nice if you EVER seemed to hold yourself and your arguments to the same standards as you so stringently expect of others.

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God you clearly have nothing but whataboutisms to contribute with.

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Way I see it, you don't have much better to offer seeing as how your nepotism combatment post is the only point of mine you're making the attempt to fight..... Which is from a different post entirely! :D

As I mentioned about the Auspices, and you mentioned about the Ancients' creations. When are you gonna address your own whataboutisms, new-old friend? Your continued avoidance of combating my logical points exposes your inability to shoot them down, instead you rely on the admittedly low-hanging fruit I offered so graciously. I never expected that one to be taken seriously, that one was fully admitted low-effort rage bait but when you take into account what it was in response to who can truly blame me? I'm merely using the same "Nobody on these forums bothers to discuss fairly and in good faith, and use nice language all the time! So, neither will I because I'm fed up!" that you yourself have admitted to in the past. I honestly don't see why I ought to put out any more effort than my intellectual opponents are willing to.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

It's all the vagueness surrounding basically everything that happens between the end of Elpis and the Sundering the that makes it hard for me to feel completely for/against either faction's course of action, though perhaps that was precisely the writer's intent.

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It's a poor way of making it morally ambiguous though. It's one thing to present all the facts and saying "you can see from this that neither side was right", and an entirely different matter to withhold the facts that will let people decide which-if-either side is right.

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

Oh, and uh... unrelatedly to the most immediate topic: Nier Re[in]carnation's sundering lore says hello.

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Yeah, about that. I did Hades EX for the first time the other day and he's still calling us "malformed creatures" there, so I don't think we can conclusively know how he's using it in that story either. It's just more ambiguity on top of ambiguity.

Minstrel's Ballads aren't the canon versions of the fights, merely their embellished retellings. That said, it is most certainly a phrase Hades tosses around over the course of the game. With the benefit of hindsight, we know why; he was trying to convince himself more than anyone. Dude knew all along he was harming living things, and it bothered him pretty much from the word go.

As for NieR Re[in]carnation, we do have a good bit of information provided for us. What remained following the sundering was quite literally malformed, bearing no resemblance to much of anything and so far gone that even the unsundered couldn't communicate with them anymore. It took a very, very long time for the sundered to become anything recognizable or even be capable of communication.

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

The Scions -- Alphinaud especially -- have a bit of a record of getting things wrong, and what they do as a result of their incorrect conclusions is not always the most helpful thing. Just throwing that out there.

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There not perfect for sure. But given Emet confirms they are 100% correct five minutes later, I’d say this isn’t one of those times.

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Emet-Selch: I may have gotten a little carried away, in my attention to detail. Added a few unnecessary flourishes...

Weeell, there's no point trying to hide it. Yes.

Once the rejoining of worlds is complete, Zodiark will regain His full strength and shatter His prison.

Then we shall offer up the Source's remaining inhabitants in sacrifice, that we might resurrect our brethren who died to bring Zodiark into existence.

But what was it that you came here to do, exactly?

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So we once again have to conclude that either they are right or they were written to be wrong on the facts but got lucky and ended up with the correct conclusion. The latter again makes no sense from a writing perspective.

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

As for NieR Re[in]carnation, we do have a good bit of information provided for us. What remained following the sundering was quite literally malformed, bearing no resemblance to much of anything and so far gone that even the unsundered couldn't communicate with them anymore. It took a very, very long time for the sundered to become anything recognizable or even be capable of communication.

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They’re stated to not be able to form words, which can happen when you lose a lot of your memory. It’s also stated in that same event that Emet was repulsed and viewed them as “misbegotten husks” and “wretches” in our current time, so I’m disinclined to believe he can be trusted to give accurate descriptions. Even less so after he said Varis’ body was “wrong” and that the WoL was a broken husk.

Not to mention, Emet himself stresses that the Sundering does not touch flesh, and uses an exact copy of Ryne as an example. “Identical in appearance” is the term he used.

Isn't the Nier game narrated from the perspective and viewpoint of the focus character? Emet-Selch's initial revulsion and abhorrence of the newly sundered people can't be taken at face value imo.

I mean, we see that they are capable of forming communities that had paintings, scriptures and songs that communicated half-remembered visions of Amaurot, the Final Days, and the Sundering.

If they were just shambling husks incapable of communication, why did they end up doing all that instead of you know, starving to death?

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

There not perfect for sure. But given Emet confirms they are 100% correct five minutes later, I’d say this isn’t one of those times.



So we once again have to conclude that either they are right or they were written to be wrong on the facts but got lucky and ended up with the correct conclusion. The latter again makes no sense from a writing perspective.



They’re stated to not be able to form words, which can happen when you lose a lot of your memory. It’s also stated in that same event that Emet was repulsed and viewed them as “misbegotten husks” and “wretches” in our current time, so I’m disinclined to believe he can be trusted to give accurate descriptions. Even less so after he said Varis’ body was “wrong” and that the WoL was a broken husk.

Not to mention, Emet himself stresses that the Sundering does not touch flesh, and uses an exact copy of Ryne as an example.

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A couple thoughts. Firstly, if we choose to disregard other in-game conversations and take this one purely at face value, nothing in there indicates the sacrifices to be limited to sapient life. He appears to be speaking of all life, and any kind of assumption otherwise would indeed be mistaken on part of the Scions. However, this is decidedly not what the original Ancients had planned. Conflating the two is disingenuous.

We are informed rather clearly their original plan was to cultivate life in the world, then sacrifice that life to bring back those sacrificed to Zodiark. The Ancients, and by extension Zodiark, were at no point shown capable of willfully creating sapient life -- or granting a new organism a soul, for that matter. Both of these things were dictated not by them but by the planet itself. Even the Meteia were produced only after an absurd amount of experimentation, with all involved acknowledging the one Meteion's full sapience as a fluke. If the Ancients were not able to create sapient life or grant souls, then that does rather limit their choices when it comes to intended sacrificial lambs.

Now on to the second point: It isn't merely that they couldn't form words. They were quite literally incapable of any form of communication, even that facilitated by the Echo (or whatever you want to call the remaining power the unsundered had). Communication was an impossibility. We're also given a far more detailed description of their forms than simply the labels Emet-Selch applied to their condition. The amount of body horror that took place was honestly a bit impressive.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

Isn't the Nier game narrated from the perspective and viewpoint of the focus character? Emet-Selch's initial revulsion and abhorrence of the newly sundered people can't be taken at face value imo.

I mean, we see that they are capable of forming communities that had paintings, scriptures and songs that communicated half-remembered visions of Amaurot, the Final Days, and the Sundering.

If they were just shambling husks incapable of communication, why did they end up doing all that instead of you know, starving to death?

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These various structures and art pieces arose later on. You will note that even in FFXIV proper certain individuals yet retain trace memories of the world's original state, though most are limited only to recalling bits and pieces through dreams about the Final Days. The subconscious mind is a powerful tool, and many artists draw a great deal of inspiration from their dreams. These individuals no doubt had zero idea what they were creating, only than it was something that evoked strong emotion in themselves and some others.

As for starving to death? Seeking out food is a primal instinct. Even the least intelligent animals have never had any difficulty doing that. Why would the sundered be unable to feed themselves? Being reduced to a shambling mass of incoherent blubbering and body horror does not preclude the ability to meet one's basic needs.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

There not perfect for sure. But given Emet confirms they are 100% correct five minutes later, I’d say this isn’t one of those times.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

Isn't the Nier game narrated from the perspective and viewpoint of the focus character? Emet-Selch's initial revulsion and abhorrence of the newly sundered people can't be taken at face value imo.

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I felt compelled to revisit this briefly. Curious that Emet-Selch's words should be taken at face value at certain times yet handily dismissed at others even when context should indicate he's being truthful at a given time. We're to immediately accept everything he says about the Ascians' grand plan and him willingly going along with it as fact, yet his descriptions of the state the sundered are in directly after the act are inherently suspect.

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

As for starving to death? Seeking out food is a primal instinct. Even the least intelligent animals have never had any difficulty doing that. Why would the unsundered be unable to feed themselves? Being reduced to a shambling mass of incoherent blubbering and body horror does not preclude the ability to meet one's basic needs.

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But we're not talking about animals, we're talking about people. If a bunch of people became shambling masses, incapable of communication, they would not be biologically equiped to go out and feed themselves, especially in the fantasically dangerous world of FFXIV. They'd just get killed.

So either Emet-Selch - who reguarly calls us hideous, malformed creatures to this day, is biased against life that he sees as lesser, or somehow mankind survived being incapable communication for a few generations, despite communication being kind of necessary for survival when you no longer have creation magic.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

But we're not talking about animals, we're talking about people. If a bunch of people became shambling masses, incapable of communication, they would not be biologically equiped to go out and feed themselves, especially in the fantasically dangerous world of FFXIV. They'd just get killed.

So either Emet-Selch - who reguarly calls us hideous, malformed creatures to this day, is biased against life that he sees as lesser, or somehow mankind survived being incapable communication for a few generations, despite communication being kind of necessary for survival when you no longer have creation magic.

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You are grossly underestimating the ease with which food can be acquired. Not every lifeform in FFXIV is fantastically dangerous. In fact, the vast majority of them are perfectly harmless and often quite defenseless. The plethora of life we routinely fight in-game is only a portion of what's actually there.

Regarding Emet-Selch; we are told, not through implication but direct statement, that he did not really believe the majority of what he said about the sundered. That was one of his coping mechanisms, and it did not stop him from becoming a quasi-suicidal ball of self-loathing. His duty to his people kept him going, but he did understand the wrongness of his mission. He even tried to abandon it at different points, but something would always go wrong each time. He even loved his mortal son.

Additionally, as pertains to the point of view offered by the NieR Re[in]carnation content, he was legitimately horrified and upset by what became of his people. He didn't begin at "these lesser things are terrible," and attempts were made to interact before they functionally written off.

The Amaurotine Convocation sacrificed countless millions of lives in the name of their dark god and destroyed seven worlds to try to resurrect their dead nation. All under the false pretext of racial superiority, under the mistaken belief that they were somehow more entitled to life than the other peoples of the planet. We had to personally put them down in order to bring an end to their cruelty. What makes you think that they were any less prepared to do the same back then?

We know for a fact that there were other advanced civilizations on Etheirys during the Ancient times. What makes you think that the Amaurotine leadership was remotely capable of drawing an ethical distinction between 'sapient' and 'non-sapient' life, when they already failed that test with us?

No, it wasn't about ethics. They had the power to get what they wanted, so they tried to take it. We had the power to stop them. It is what it is.

The Convocation most certainly did not sacrifice millions of people to gorge their "dark god." The number of Ancients sacrificed to Zodiark was far lower than such a lofty number. Now if you mean the Ascians sacrificed millions and destroyed seven worlds, you'd at least be getting warmer. It's more likely they sacrificed billions, however. Etheirys is far too broad a place to only house millions, so the number would definitely be way higher.

Now, this distinction is important. The Ancients created Zodiark using only willing subjects and fully planned to bring them back as soon as it was feasible to do so. Nowhere in the game or anywhere else is it indicated even a single individual within Zodiark got there against their will. The Ancients were desperate, but they weren't so desperate as to completely throw away their societal standards. Incidentally, you may note the developers as well often make a distinction between Ancient and Ascian when discussing them.

As Ascians, on the other hand, they were utterly desperate. They were the last of their kind as far as they knew. The only options they had to were to abandon their people to what was essentially oblivion or to begin the rejoinings. To this day no other method of restoring Etheirys and its people to their former state has been put forward in any content. No one's going to say what they were doing was necessarily "right," but to dismiss them as lolevil simply because they had a responsibility to right what they perceived as a great wrong committed against their people is some very shallow thinking.

Now, regarding the other civilizations on Etheirys during their age: no material indicates the Amaurotines regarded other groups of Ancients as expendable or what have you. We are, however, told rather directly that they do regularly engage in meaningful relations with their people from all around the world. Theirs was a global civilization. Amaurot was merely their greatest city and seat of power, not a country unto itself.

Virtually every shred of information we have regarding Ancient civilization seems to strongly indicate their methods and moral statutes differed greatly from what we saw from the Ascians. It seems fairly evident their own people would consider what they're doing to bring them back abhorrent if somehow made aware of it. Indeed, Emet-Selch's past self was absolutely revulsed by what he learned of his future. There is no indication anywhere in or out of game in any official materials the Ancients were anything more than our interactions with them (Note: them being the Ancients, not the later Ascians) made them out to be. They were just... people. Some good, some bad, but on the whole they definitely come off as upstanding.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

I've seen many quote Alphinauds line, but what of the rest of it? Its clear that the Scions are concluding that the humans on the Source will be sacrificed, based solely on what fake Hyth told us. Concluding that this is an incorrect reading of that conversation, that they were intending to sacrifice anything but human beings, is to say the Scions are also wrong, which is nonsensical writing. So we are left with two choices. Either the writers were telling us the initial sacrifice were intended to be humans, or the writers of ShB and EW lost the plot several years ago.

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I'm kinda confused about where you're coming from with this argument, because by definition there weren't any non-Ancient humans prior to the Sundering. The modern races are descended from their Sundered versions. The text is pretty clear that it's specifically the 'new life' going on the chopping block as opposed to more Amaurotines, so by definition the original third sacrifice couldn't have consisted of the same beings as the Ascians planned sacrifice that Emet and Alphinaud talk about at the endgame. It shows he was willing to kill sapient beings, but doesn't clarify if that was going to happen or, if so, what those sapient beings were (assuming they existed yet, which Raelle said isn't exactly a given).

By the way, I don't mean any ill in saying this, but I kinda wish you'd structure your arguments as comprehensive rebuttals instead of bullet points where you quote isolated components of someone's post and make a bunch of micro-replies. I wanted to respond to your post to me from earlier, but not only does that style kinda distort people's broader points and lead to arguing over minutia, it's also really time-consuming to engage with. I either have to meet you on your terms and go point-by-point in quoting and replying - which is kinda a pain in the butt and tends to lead reply chains growing bigger and bigger until they're out of control - or I have to make assumptions about your general thinking and reply with a summary, which feels very loose and unsatisfying and often causes misunderstandings. It takes a lot more energy to even tackle in a way that feels fair.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

It's a bit worrying how quick we are to dismiss the Convocation's proposed sacrifices as 'unintelligent' life. That's the exact same party line that the Ascians used to justify the horrific atrocities that they committed against our societies over the past twelve thousand years - by claiming that we were somehow less than human.

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Lyth, this is a bonkers thing to say, and you know it. This is not a diagetic conversation. People unsure if the sacrifices were sapient or not aren't unsure because they're indulging in in-universe moral relativity about issue in line with the Ascians, they're unsure because Natsuko Ishikawa, the real-world human being, literally hasn't written it down.