[Spoilers] I’m irrevocably Unimpressed

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Originally Posted by Granyala

Though he only referred to "life" not necessarily "sentient life".
It may very well possible that he was referring to flora and fauna in the general sense as an aether source and not necessarily developed civilizations.
At least in the original plan.

Later on, apparently civilizations developed and that's when the inner Ascian conflict came to be because eradicating sentient life would go against their ethics. Hence the "this world should belong to the newly formed life" and subsequently the summoning of Hydelyn as protector of said life.

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Considering he thinks most mortals to be idiotic and stupid, I have high doubts he sees the difference between a lala and a potato. One just gives more lip. It's Emet, he's going to hint your not sentient just to have a good laugh. And if he was actually talking about the fauna and flora, doesn't that make it worse? Since they are guardians and stewards of that world. It'd be like forest protector burning a good portion of the wood so that the ashes can be used to fertilize and nourish the old trees, even when there's nothing wrong with this new life. This new life that wasn't splintered by the way and thus had 'complete' souls.

At that point, when they went along with that plan or tried to, it was akin to racism/elitism.

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Originally Posted by Gwenorai

I have high doubts he sees the difference between a lala and a potato.

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Wait... there is one? Oo

As for whether they consider us sentient: do we consider lower lifeforms sentient and attribute them the same right we do humans?
I think not. A human would be the same to an Ascian as a pig to a human. Some of us do not concern themselves with their fate or animal cruelty, some of us do.
It's basically the same conflict that divided the Ascian society.

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Originally Posted by Granyala

Wait... there is one? Oo

As for whether they consider us sentient: do we consider lower lifeforms sentient and attribute them the same right we do humans?
I think not. A human would be the same to an Ascian as a pig to a human. Some of us do not concern themselves with their fate or animal cruelty, some of us do.
It's basically the same conflict that divided the Ascian society.

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But all humans, regardless of their beliefs, acknowledge that the pig is or was alive. Emet-Selch explicitly states "I do not consider you to truly be alive".

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Originally Posted by Daralii

But all humans, regardless of their beliefs, acknowledge that the pig is or was alive. Emet-Selch explicitly states "I do not consider you to truly be alive".

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We have no real life equivalent. The people who are alive in the shards are all incomplete beings. Consider if you were suddenly going to be split into 14 people, with your own current existence basically being wiped out. As a complete person who must become non-existent as a result of the other 14 people existing, how do you view them?

This is a good question.

Would it be wrong to kill billions of people to give the future children after immorality? And not just your own, but every newborn? Trading billions of lives to extend of lives of your offspring and the offspring of everyone you know?

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Originally Posted by Daralii

But all humans, regardless of their beliefs, acknowledge that the pig is or was alive. Emet-Selch explicitly states "I do not consider you to truly be alive".

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I find it funny that he says we aren't truly alive then asks us to remember their lives when he dies.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

We have no real life equivalent. The people who are alive in the shards are all incomplete beings. Consider if you were suddenly going to be split into 14 people, with your own current existence basically being wiped out. As a complete person who must become non-existent as a result of the other 14 people existing, how do you view them?

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People, they have their own personalities, hopes and dreams, struggles.


Just because I am no longer in existence doesn't mean they aren't people.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

People, they have their own personalities, hopes and dreams, struggles.


Just because I am no longer in existence doesn't mean they aren't people.

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Oh yeah, and they only live for 10 seconds in comparison to your 100 years.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Oh yeah, and they only live for 10 seconds in comparison to your 100 years.

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Still people. Some people already have super short lives through no faults of their own. They aren't any less a person than my great-grandmother who lived to 103.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Oh yeah, and they only live for 10 seconds in comparison to your 100 years.

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Viera live for 200+ years. I guess this means they should flex and murder Miqote for their average lifespan of 50 years. What point were you making?
You're assuming that one life = one revived ascian. When in truth it's probably 100, 1000 or more for one of them to be revived. Their differences in 'aether' are too vast for a 1:1 exchange.

Ok, THIS is what happens when the bad guys win.

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Originally Posted by Gwenorai

Viera live for 200+ years. I guess this means they should flex and murder Miqote for their average lifespan of 50 years. What point were you making?
You're assuming that one life = one revived ascian. When in truth it's probably 100, 1000 or more for one of them to be revived. Their differences in 'aether' are too vast for a 1:1 exchange.

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The point is, do you view something that lives for only 10 seconds to truly be living? If you do, then that's great. But if you don't, I wouldn't blame you.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

The point is, do you view something that lives for only 10 seconds to truly be living? If you do, then that's great. But if you don't, I wouldn't blame you.

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Some insects only live for a couple days. they are still alive (and can be incredibly annoying).

Everything is perspective. There are people out there who have lived half of my measly 30 years and have done and experienced much more in their lives than i ever will. I have done and experienced more than some people in their 90s.

Would you say they or I have truly lived in that case?

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Originally Posted by DJMau

Also, Emet lost the moment he decided to go on and on about how he's 'superior' to everyone else. All his years (and the not so substantial fact that we've already wasted ascians before him) should have clued him in that fighting a cornered beast is a VERY bad idea.

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More that he lost the second he thought "Oh I'll get rid of them now." He could have just let us take all the power of the Lightwardens, and then throw it at the 13th shard to reverse the damage they did, giving them another shard to make a calamity with. For somebody who is supposed to think long term, he thought short term.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

More that he lost the second he thought "Oh I'll get rid of them now." He could have just let us take all the power of the Lightwardens, and then throw it at the 13th shard to reverse the damage they did, giving them another shard to make a calamity with. For somebody who is supposed to think long term, he thought short term.

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Its possible that the 13th is actually irrevocably damaged and can no longer be reverted. it went past even the point of rejoining, which is where the first was headed and it would have been shrouded completely in light.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

More that he lost the second he thought "Oh I'll get rid of them now." He could have just let us take all the power of the Lightwardens, and then throw it at the 13th shard to reverse the damage they did, giving them another shard to make a calamity with. For somebody who is supposed to think long term, he thought short term.

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He only lost due to not knowing about Ardbert, which no one but the WoL/D and OGMinfillia knew about. Without Ardbert we would have turned into the strongest Light Warden just as he had planned once we weren't able to contain the Light on our own.

Everyone can be caught off guard.

Also neither we nor the Exarch could have taken the Light to the 13th, we were already breaking down and its explicitly stated that the Exarch would have died during the travel, he never would have made it to any Shard much less the 13th. And of course Emet couldn't take it because Light is the Ascian kryptonite.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Some insects only live for a couple days. they are still alive (and can be incredibly annoying).

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We also have no way of knowing for sure whether they are sentient or not. And we smash them underfoot regardless, for most people, without a thought.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

But all humans, regardless of their beliefs, acknowledge that the pig is or was alive. Emet-Selch explicitly states "I do not consider you to truly be alive".

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Well, we don't have pigs that are a 1/14th shard of a normal pig. :D

Though yeah: we think they are alive and still butcher them w/o remorse because: mmmh bacon!

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Its possible that the 13th is actually irrevocably damaged and can no longer be reverted. it went past even the point of rejoining, which is where the first was headed and it would have been shrouded completely in light.

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I think Emet explicitly states that they broke it in an overly eager attempt at fixing stuff.

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Originally Posted by Vivi_Bushido

This is a good question.

Would it be wrong to kill billions of people to give the future children after immorality? And not just your own, but every newborn? Trading billions of lives to extend of lives of your offspring and the offspring of everyone you know?

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It depends entirely on consent.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

We also have no way of knowing for sure whether they are sentient or not. And we smash them underfoot regardless, for most people, without a thought.

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We have plenty of ways to know whether or not they are sentient. Civilizations are actually quite easy to detect. We understand that bees have an organized hierarchy but that most of their actions are autonomic, not sentient.

They have won... Seven times now. Every rejoining/calamity is a win for them.

I loved how the story turned out. And the Ascians have done their share of winning, and they won multiple times, just in the end, we got our victory. We lost at the end of ARR's patch cycle, so it's not like we always win in this game (though I think ARR's wasn't well done). And we were at a stalemate at the end of Stormblood. So actually, it's nice to have a huge grandiose victory of epic proportions akin to how a classic Final Fantasy game would end, because that's what it felt like, a true Final Fantasy finish. Plus, we have several patches to go and we have loose threads. We have victories and losses to go as is.

Are the Ascians evil? Well, I honestly think SE made the Ascians better villains this time round because they've not given us a textbook Disney kind of "good" and "evil", they're not that effective. I do evil because I am evil *evil cackle*. True villains have depth, they have a motive and it is not in one's nature to simply "do" evil for the sake of it being evil. Even if you believe in moral absolutism, somebody doesn't do "evil" for the sake of doing bad, but because in their mind it is good, it is right, it serves some purpose that is positive to them, even if we find it morally abhorrent or is judged morally abhorrent in an absolutist philosophy. How they've approached it is realistic, if anything.

In his mind Emet-Selch is justified because he doesn't consider people to be alive, but a shade. And thus is justified in how treats life from his perspective. Interestingly, the background to all this reeks very strongly of Plato's allegory of the cave. He had the idea that everything in our world is a shadow cast of a perfect 'form' and thus we exist in an imperfect realm. But if one were to follow Plato's idea, we're all still living, breathing things with our own lives, as shadows of this perfect world, we still exist. The people of all worlds in the FFXIV universe are alive and thus a genocide would be putting an end to all those lives, so one could argue that what the Ascians are doing is bad, very bad.

Whilst they may be reborn into a perfect being, their life is still at an end, there is death, there is still loss, there is still pain and suffering and they would not retain any thought or memory of themselves and it is all taken from them without consent. Imagine believing in reincarnation and justifying murder because they will live on in a new form (possibly a better form if their karma is good)? Or believing in heaven to justify murder because they will move onto eternal paradise? Though in the latter scenario, you'd still be yourself, which is different to here.

We are imperfect and maybe incomplete beings in the game's universe, but we are still beings. I get it creates a philosophical and moral conundrum, but I think the fact it does that is a sign of good writing, especially given the cues to philosophy made it feels intentional.

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Originally Posted by Edax

\We have plenty of ways to know whether or not they are sentient. Civilizations are actually quite easy to detect. We understand that bees have an organized hierarchy but that most of their actions are autonomic, not sentient.

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Civilization has nothing to do with sentience.

What if their goal is a lie? Bringing back their own civilization I mean. A lie they told themselves justify their actions at reviving Zodiark. We know for certain they they're all tempered so...why would they need a cause to do so? To me at least, it sounds fishy. And I admit part of it stems from having played a certain Yoko Taro led game.


The beast tribes had a reason for the most part, that being desperation and fear of destruction but the Ascians...don't. Hell apart from us very few even know they exist.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Civilization has nothing to do with sentience.

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I've never heard of the concept of a civilization existing without sentience. It's something of a critical prerequisite.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

We also have no way of knowing for sure whether they are sentient or not. And we smash them underfoot regardless, for most people, without a thought.

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Why would they say that the other Ancient wanted to leave the planet in the hands of the new life and not be the protector anymore if it isnt sentient life?

And unlike flies we know that the spoken races are sentient so I dont understand the discussion about this. Just because he does not see us a life does not mean we arent. He even goes on and says that we have the same emotions and we do have a soul, just not a complete one. We have memories, can feel, and have our own thoughts. We are alive, the amount of years one could live should not matter in that regard.

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Originally Posted by Black_Wing

They have won... Seven times now. Every rejoining/calamity is a win for them.

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To add to this, it's a big, irreversible win. We can't win any ground back from the Ascians, if they cause a calamity, they're permanently closer to their goal so far as we know.

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Originally Posted by DJMau

What if their goal is a lie? Bringing back their own civilization I mean. A lie they told themselves justify their actions at reviving Zodiark. We know for certain they they're all tempered so...why would they need a cause to do so? To me at least, it sounds fishy. And I admit part of it stems from having played a certain Yoko Taro led game.


The beast tribes had a reason for the most part, that being desperation and fear of destruction but the Ascians...don't. Hell apart from us very few even know they exist.

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I thought they had plenty reason.
"You cannot be entrusted with our legacy" The modern Ascians are faced with destruction, there is only one unsundered left capable of making more Ascians. Destruction, and obscurity, to have that destruction and death be swept under the rug in celebration of the primal that put them in this hell.

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Originally Posted by Edax

I've never heard of the concept of a civilization existing without sentience. It's something of a critical prerequisite.

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You seem to be confusing what sentience means, then.

What are some examples of non-sentience civilizations?

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

What are some examples of non-sentience civilizations?

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It's an absurd question. I've never heard of civilization without water. Does this mean that a civilization is impossible without water?

And again, if you think sentience is a critical prerequisite of civilization, you probably are misunderstanding what "sentience" even means.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

It's an absurd question. I've never heard of civilization without water. Does this mean that a civilization is impossible without water?

And again, if you think sentience is a critical prerequisite of civilization, you probably are misunderstanding what "sentience" even means.

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Fictional examples are valid.

Sentience means being able to experience life or your own existence, feel sensations, and react to them.

You might be confusing it with Sapience.
Sapience is a step further, it's being able to acknowledge that you are "alive", being able to question your own existence.

Most animals are Sentient, whether or not any other animals are Sapient is still up for debate.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Fictional examples are valid.

Sentience means being able to experience life or your own existence, feel sensations, and react to them.

You might be confusing it with Sapience.
Sapience is a step further, it's being able to acknowledge that you are "alive", being able to question your own existence.

Most animals are Sentient, whether or not any other animals are Sapient is still up for debate.

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Exactly. Most animals are sentient as far as we know. Yet we have no qualms about killing most of them to further our needs and wants. For some animals, we can't be sure if they are sentient or not, yet we have no problem killing them without giving them even a single thought.

But the Ascians are willing to sacrifice life for their own goals, and suddenly people are up in arms about it. The way I see it, we do not have the moral highground. We are no better than them.

What makes it wrong is not any absolute morality. It's wrong because to us, it's wrong. But there are things we do not consider wrong, but to those we do them to, they are wrong.

It's all moral relativism.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Exactly. Most animals are sentient as far as we know. Yet we have no qualms about killing most of them to further our needs and wants. For some animals, we can't be sure if they are sentient or not, yet we have no problem killing them without giving them even a single thought.

But the Ascians are willing to sacrifice life for their own goals, and suddenly people are up in arms about it. The way I see it, we do not have the moral highground. We are no better than them.

What makes it wrong is not any absolute morality. It's wrong because to us, it's wrong. But there are things we do not consider wrong, but to those we do them to, they are wrong.

It's all moral relativism.

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Because we're making a distinction between Sentience and Sapience, whether or not all those arguing that point fully understand the correct terms.

We're not just Sentient, we're Sapient.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Because we're making a distinction between Sentience and Sapience, whether or not all those arguing that point fully understand the correct terms.

We're not just Sentient, we're Sapient.

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And I am arguing that it's wrong because those things are sentient. They're not sapient, but they are sentient. Therefore, it's wrong.

If you want to draw the line at sapience and ignore sentience, then on what grounds are you doing so? What makes that the line that must be crossed before it's wrong?

The Ascians, similarly, have concluded that we do not have what it takes for it to be considered wrong to use us in the way they have planned to. We have sentience, and sapience. That's not enough, though. They have decided you need something more. Just the way that most people have come to the conclusion that sentience, or even life itself, alone is not enough.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

And I am arguing that it's wrong because those things are sentient. They're not sapient, but they are sentient. Therefore, it's wrong.

If you want to draw the line at sapience and ignore sentience, then on what grounds are you doing so? What makes that the line that must be crossed before it's wrong?

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I happen to be vegetarian, but that's another issue.
That's like saying we shouldn't fun Cancer research while people are dying of starvation in Africa.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

The Ascians, similarly, have concluded that we do not have what it takes for it to be considered wrong to use us in the way they have planned to. We have sentience, and sapience. That's not enough, though. They have decided you need something more. Just the way that most people have come to the conclusion that sentience, or even life itself, alone is not enough.

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Correct...?

The Ascians motives are justifiable... to them.
That doesn't mean they're not still villains.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

I happen to be vegetarian, but that's another issue.
That's like saying we shouldn't fun Cancer research while people are dying of starvation in Africa.

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And I happen to believe that killing plants is wrong. I do not believe that sentience is required. But you don't see me arguing that I have moral authority over the Ascians.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

And I happen to believe that killing plants is wrong. I do not believe that sentience is required. But you don't see me arguing that I have moral authority over the Ascians.

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Now you're just being contrarian.

Hitler's motives were justifiable to the Nazi's.
You can't take the 'moral relativism' argument to its extremes, or it becomes meaningless.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Now you're just being contrarian.

Hitler's motives were justifiable to the Nazi's.
You can't take the 'moral relativism' argument to its extremes, or it becomes meaningless.

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Hitler was our equal. The Ascians are not. They are akin to gods compared to us.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Hitler was our equal. The Ascians are not. They are akin to gods compared to us.

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And their world is already dead, ours is not.

Should we sacrifice humanity to resurrect Cthulu?

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Hitler was our equal. The Ascians are not. They are akin to gods compared to us.

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So what you're saying is. Oh, this race is superior to us in every single way, thus we must bow down and take our beatings like the good little insignificant sapients we are.

I guess by this means by a fashion that every single movie where Aliens come to harvest humans for their own means so they can continue living is fine and dandy. And they're certainly not evil for harvesting our lovely life essence to use as fertilizer. Remember folks, next time we have another war of the worlds, to roll over and show your tender tummy to our alien overlords.

Mate, what you're spewing out is called 'elitism.'