I see this thread is still stuck in an endless back and forth between the people who insist that the Endless were not alive because the writers tell us so, and the people who say the writers messed up and what we are told clearly doesn't match what we are shown.
These two groups will never be able to convince the other, because they are not at the same meta level of discussion.
The former builds its arguments from within the confines of what the writers claimed our options were.
The latter point out that the writers could have written anything, and just did a bad job at this plot line because those needn't have been our only options, and shouldn't have, given what we carry over from previous expansions that really should have come up.
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07-07-2024, 12:57 PMEyrilona
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07-07-2024, 01:52 PMRodaIt's 'cause her main goal wasn't to "protect the alexandrians" it was to "avoid immediate sadness at all costs" and she's too soft to do the harvesting part. (that's what Zoraal ja was for!)Quote:
Originally Posted by Supersnow845
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07-07-2024, 02:03 PMSupersnow845I’m pretty sure harvesting half of tural is creating “immediate sadness”Quote:
Originally Posted by Roda
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07-07-2024, 02:22 PMSoxxxI don't think it's that simple. I would personally argue that the writers actually very explicitly tell us that the Endless are alive. At least, they do state that they're made up of memories and souls. We're given Otis as an example of the first experimental Endless who carries soul aether around with him, and Cahciua directly states that she may be composed of aether from someone from the attacks on the city, directly insinuating that she's made up of a soul to at least some extent, and that it isn't just something being consumed, but rather it's a part of her actual composition. The only distinction with them that's made clear is that the Endless are unnatural and that they lack bodies.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eyrilona
Personally, I would consider something made up of memories and a soul to be living.
And to be completely honest, I actually think it's totally moot argument either way. Even if they weren't living, I still don't see why we had to shut them all down. To my knowledge, the only thing we needed to kill was Sphene since she's the one that wanted to kill people. Cahciua states the reason for us to erase the Endless was to take away Sphene's reason for fighting in the first place, her people. However, we fail to mention that to her at all nor does she ever wind up acknowledging that her people are all gone, and we just kill her anyway, and erasing the Endless was totally unnecessary to get to her in the first place.
So... Moral quandaries aside, erasing the Endless is also just a total waste of six hours besides lore and plot that feels unjustified and out of place unless you're totally on board with everything exactly the way the writer intended. Overall, the whole problem would've been fixed if they had someone else read through the writing that bothered to ask these questions so we could get more clarification where it was clearly needed. -
07-07-2024, 02:30 PMArzalisQuote:
Originally Posted by AmorfaVex
This isn't the situation at all, though. They don't do anything. The system needs aether/souls to exist, but the people inside are innocent.
We should have stopped Sphene and let what happens happen for those who are left at the very least. That gives a chance to even potentially come up with another plan to help them. I have no problems with stopping Sphene. I have serious problems with how casually it was glossed over that we might be murdering innocent people and the lack of an attempt to even think of another solution. It also doesn't even serve a purpose? There's no reason we can't leave them to exist.
There's a difference between stopping her and that potentially leading to the system shutting down vs actively deleting them yourself. One is an understandable, if unfortunate, inevitability; the other is potentially genocide. -
07-07-2024, 02:40 PMGranyalaThey require LIFE FORCE. A special kind of aether, if you so will. It was also stated that other forms of energy have been tested and do not work.Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveFishnomer
So yes: they will KILL everything and everyone on the source and all other shard worlds to keep their machinery running. Sphene stated that VERY EXPLICITLY.
We're not mass murderers. These people already HAD their life and are now artificially sustained as a shadow of their former selves (their memories are HEAVILY censored, lest they would be unhappy being trapped in the system). That is the very big difference to Emet Selch who would kill the living before they even had a chance at a life.
Also: We're simply acting in self defense. It's a "them or us" situation here. With "us" not just being "us" on the source but potentially all inhabited worlds in the cosmos, as it would only be a matter of time until the remaining reflections and the source have been used up and Sphene turns to other inhabited worlds.
Because that would accomplish the same thing, in the end. They can kill and harvest you RIGHT NOW. Or they can make you a citizen and harvest you when you die of old age. That's why she asked us "Do you want to become Alexandrian citizens?" with hopeful eyes when we ask her what help she'd need.Quote:
Originally Posted by Supersnow845
Also, I reckon, the hard programming took over more and more the more dire the situation got. -
07-07-2024, 02:44 PMTizzy_Tormentor
How is it genocide when they are explicitly dead? They should be allowed to move on, instead of being stuck in eternal limbo because Sphere can't let them go, many of the Endless you speak to are aware of their situation, that they are just facsimiles of actual people and are forced to live inside their hollow paradise because that's all they can do. Living Memory can't be maintained without sacrifice. It's a glorified graveyard filled with shades, not life, you are just there to switch the lights off so they can finally be at rest. Why would you want to keep it going? Everything about Living Memory is superfluous and fake.
Not to mention that its an Endless, Cachuia, who asks you to do this, she likely isn't the only one who felt that way, she knows better than anyone what its like to be an Endless and she thinks that this course of action is the best, iirc you can even argue "There has to be another way" and she shoots you down, saying that she looked for one and came to this conclusion.
Edit: Even the first NPC you meet says this at some point: "I harbor no ill will against you. I, for one, would not wish to remain Endless at the cost of such terrible sacrifice to worlds beyond." and its made clear Living Memory isn't sustainable. -
07-07-2024, 02:50 PMGranyalaI do not consider them alive because of what is shown:Quote:
Originally Posted by Eyrilona
1) Cahciua SUFFERS. Why? Because she actually has her memories and wants to live a real life, explore the unknown, satisfy her curiosity. NOT possible in the super tiny dome world while being tied to machinery.
2) The other Endless do not suffer. Why? Because their memories are being nuked left, right, front and center to artificially keep them "happy". At that point, they are no longer persons. They are basically just scripted bots where any behavior the system does not condone gets eliminated.
How can anyone say that these programs are alive at that point?! Yeah, they could be considered alive, if their memories are unaltered.
Wanna bet how many would beg us to shut them down after a couple hundred of years of being trapped in a tiny amusement park?
Also, technically, the endless cannot make more endless, so one important definition of life is already negated.That one was just SUPER weird.Quote:
Originally Posted by Soxxx
Also that we could nilly willy deactivate core machinery and actively ERASE critical system data w/o literally ANY kind of security response.... I mean what the fork?!
Uhuh because Meso terminal busy with calculation .... <_<
Yah, totally agreed that the writer dropped the ball to the other side of the earth on that one. -
07-07-2024, 02:59 PMSupersnow845That option doesn’t work because if her line of thinking for the tural citizens under the dome was “citizens now fuel for the endless later” then she could have offered that as an alternative solution when Wuk Lamar was trying to come up with a compromise “hey maybe we can get people to move to Alexandria to bolster our population”Quote:
Originally Posted by Granyala
It wouldn’t have actually fixed the problem but it would have delayed it
Sphene opening Alexandria to those people stands in direct opposition to “there is no other way, the endless come first” -
07-07-2024, 03:07 PMGranyalaSphene DID offer just that. Wuk Lamat refused instantly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Supersnow845
Granted, that offer was before we knew about the endless but in hindsight we now understand why she asked us to become Citizens with hopeful eyes. Because that would be the only alternative she could think of.
Whether she would even make every ex Turali citizen an endless is debatable.
Using a regulator is a choice. So everyone that dies w/o one would end up as raw fuel w/o their memories being preserved.Namikka was old. She was not an endless just yet. She died of natural causes and THEN was made into an endless we later meet again.Quote:
Originally Posted by missTori