*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

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Originally Posted by Garnetiferous

Or it could be that since the sundering split the world, the ancients got split into the seperate races at that point and thus they exist on all worlds. Emet and Hythlo, after they size you up, don't seem to recognize you as like a hrothgar or something just general comments about your stature and that would be extremely strange if they already exist. Because of Azem, they both should be very well traveled and should have seen them somewhere. Even if we chalk it up to the ancients thinking they're superior to everyone else, they should still recognize the races when they see them. Also Varis claims directly that the sundering led to the different races.

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I meant that Zodiark - in reseeding life to the star, created all the new races too. But really, it's impossible to know one way or the other.

That being said, I wouldn't take much stock in Varis's opinions of where the other races come from.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

I meant that Zodiark - in reseeding life to the star, created all the new races too. But really, it's impossible to know one way or the other.

That being said, I wouldn't take much stock in Varis's opinions of where the other races come from.

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Yeah, you're right, it's pretty much impossible to know until the game elaborates on it. The events leading up to and right after the sundering are extremely vague. Hopefully, we get some more info in later patches.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

Given that both the source and the first are populated by Roegadyn, Miqo'te, Au Ra - etc. I don't think it is a huge leap in logic to assume that those and others were the races that populated the star pre-sundering. In other words, sentient life, and potential victims for the ancient's sacrifice plan.

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Given Hydaelyn has everyone call her "mother", I would presume she created them as vessels for the Ancient's souls after the sundering. There is precedent for this with the Loporrits, after all.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Emet was horrified about his future self. After all death was an honor and the sacrificed souls were seemingly quite happy to be the matyr of the star.

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Correct me if i’m wrong but the souls sacrificed we’re stuck inside Zodiark were they not? So they weren’t able to return to the Lifestream which is where the honorable death stemmed from. In regards to the Emet thing, it just goes to show the extent someone is willing to go to save and protect their loved ones. We see this same thing with Ironworks and Graha who were willing to sacrifice people to save others. It’s something that’s played out on both sides. I think the vegan comment was partially stemming from people bashing the ancients for getting rid of creations, some of which who couldn’t hold a conversation and didn’t even have souls, but people bash them for it anyways as them “having no regard for life” despite the multiple side quests showing us it isn’t true. Meanwhile these same people i’m sure don’t question or feel remorse when a slab of steak is served to them on a silver platter. It’s double standards.Especially when it’s prevalent in the game as well. We slaughter animals all the time without a second thought, amongst the sundered there’s even a wide variety of poachers which are even worse.

Regarding Emet-Selch's perspective proving that he isn't biased because he directly observed the sundered races' cruelty and stupidity. I disagree, I think that explicitly reveals his bias. That he can observe people for generations and only see the absolute worst in them, and come away thinking they are unworthy of life and inferior to him and his bretheren is not a sign that he is enlightened and has a perspective he has come to through reason and observation.

Especially if you contrast Emet-Selch with Midgardsormr, someone who is just as long lived as Emet-Selch, and has not only seen the cruelty and hate of the sundered races, but has been more a victim of them than Emet-Selch ever has been. But still - he thinks they have value, and works to protect them as much as he would protect his own children.

(Also, given he was the architect of both the Garlean and Allagan Empires, Emet-Selch kind of has his hand on the scale when it comes to judging the sundered races.)

Alpha didn't hold conversations with us and didn't have a soul at first. Like Omega, the Ancients would have seen no problem in unmaking him.

And it was doing both the MSQ and various side-quests in Elpis, where we as the WoL are treated as a thing, that stuck in my craw. Do they have zero regard for life? No, but I don't like their standards for it, and I think Alisaie's retort to the Garlean philosophy about 'What if we don't live up to your standards of perfection/we all have a stake in this world' is actually a retort towards the Ancients of Elpis as much as it is towards the Garleans. Same with the Scions distaste for the Forum deciding who got to load into the Ragnarok and who didn't.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

Regarding Emet-Selch's perspective proving that he isn't biased because he directly observed the sundered races' cruelty and stupidity. I disagree, I think that explicitly reveals his bias. That he can observe people for generations and only see the absolute worst in them, and come away thinking they are unworthy of life and inferior to him and his bretheren is not a sign that he is enlightened and has a perspective he has come to through reason and observation.

Especially if you contrast Emet-Selch with Midgardsormr, someone who is just as long lived as Emet-Selch, and has not only seen the cruelty and hate of the sundered races, but has been more a victim of them than Emet-Selch ever has been. But still - he thinks they have value, and works to protect them as much as he would protect his own children.

(Also, given he was the architect of both the Garlean and Allagan Empires, Emet-Selch kind of has his hand on the scale when it comes to judging the sundered races.)

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Midy also has first hand knowledge that being "Unsundered" doesn't really matter much in terms of ability to survive as a society long term. Or ability to be decent. After all, the Omnicrons were a "full race" all those dead stars he passed on the way to Etheriys were from "full" peoples and look what it got them.

Midy has more reason then anyone to not really buy what the Ascians were selling. He has no reason to believe even if they got what they wanted they wouldn't end up the exact same way as any other dead star. If anything he would probably find them extremely arrogant and naïve to the wider universe.

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Originally Posted by Denishia

Alpha didn't hold conversations with us and didn't have a soul at first. Like Omega, the Ancients would have seen no problem in unmaking him.

And it was doing both the MSQ and various side-quests in Elpis, where we as the WoL are treated as a thing, that stuck in my craw. Do they have zero regard for life? No, but I don't like their standards for it, and I think Alisaie's retort to the Garlean philosophy about 'What if we don't live up to your standards of perfection/we all have a stake in this world' is actually a retort towards the Ancients of Elpis as much as it is towards the Garleans. Same with the Scions distaste for the Forum deciding who got to load into the Ragnarok and who didn't.

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We were treated as a thing because we were regarded as a familiar and we ourselves were going along with that to make things go swimmingly. Despite being a familiar or a “thing” as you want to put it, they still treat us with kindness. They take us on tours, they express concern when they think we might dissipate or disappear. They even hold ceremonies for the creations they get rid of. I don’t under at and how much more you want them to do. You don’t hold a ceremony everytime you kill a fly do you? They at the very least did that. And i’d say given how long they lasted, they were doing a pretty good job at their whole goal, aka preservation of the stari.n regards to the creation things as well, lets not forget that we literally use something similar to creation magicks in Eden, we summon primals who have a will and could hold a conversation with us, and we summon them just to kill them.

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Originally Posted by Slatersev

Not all of them, some get really annoyed at your presence, others ask you to risk yourself in combat and are explicitly fine with it if you die. One even asks to make sure you let the monster kill you if it comes to that because its more valuable then you.

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Yes because in the end we are a familiar, we are treated as a familiar, where while they do respect us, we are essentially expendable. Just like how we see porxie familiars get used and destroyed without a second thought in some of the il mheg quests. But a majority of them treat us well, and imo that sets them far apart from just not having any regards to lives like people think.I really dont see how the sundered are any better in this regard either as a majority of the time we are used as a weapon for people to point us at.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

We were treated as a thing because we were regarded as a familiar and we ourselves were going along with that to make things go swimmingly. Despite being a familiar or a “thing” as you want to put it, they still treat us with kindness. They take us on tours, they express concern when they think we might dissipate or disappear. They even hold ceremonies for the creations they get rid of. I don’t under at and how much more you want them to do. You don’t hold a ceremony everytime you kill a fly do you? They at the very least did that. And i’d say given how long they lasted, they were doing a pretty good job at their whole goal, aka preservation of the star.

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Not all of them, some get really annoyed at your presence, others ask you to risk yourself in combat and are explicitly fine with it if you die. One even asks to make sure you let the monster kill you if it comes to that because its more valuable then you.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

And I didnt know that my meal would be able to hold a conversation with me.

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Animals have the excuse of not being able to speak human languages because they lack the anatomy to do so, but man even with the aid of technology still hasn't figured out how to communicate with other intelligence species. Pigs have been shown to be smarter than 3-year old humans, but I suppose there's an argument that you can't hold a conversation with a human child either. :P

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Heck we are seen as nothing but a familiar simply because we have a less dense soul. We talk with them, we clearly show emotions and other than the soul we can basically look like them and yet we are still just familiars. An interesting, cute creation but nothing much more.

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Animals communicate with us and show us emotions, but they don't look like us and can't speak human language so I guess they're just cute and interesting, but nothing much more. Well, aside from edible, wearable, etc. At least none of the Ancients tried to do that to us!

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Originally Posted by Slatersev

Not all of them, some get really annoyed at your presence, others ask you to risk yourself in combat and are explicitly fine with it if you die. One even asks to make sure you let the monster kill you if it comes to that because its more valuable then you.

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And how is this different from how the modern, sundered world treats us? It's even worse for them because in a lot of cases we literally save them and still several people treat us poorly. It's a major aspect of the DRK 30-50 questline actually.

Coming from the perspective of Emet claiming they're "perfect" then yeah things like that are clearly a point against them but some of the standards used on the ancients, not even the sundered would pass.

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Originally Posted by Denishia

Alpha didn't hold conversations with us and didn't have a soul at first. Like Omega, the Ancients would have seen no problem in unmaking him.

And it was doing both the MSQ and various side-quests in Elpis, where we as the WoL are treated as a thing, that stuck in my craw. Do they have zero regard for life? No, but I don't like their standards for it, and I think Alisaie's retort to the Garlean philosophy about 'What if we don't live up to your standards of perfection/we all have a stake in this world' is actually a retort towards the Ancients of Elpis as much as it is towards the Garleans. Same with the Scions distaste for the Forum deciding who got to load into the Ragnarok and who didn't.

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This seems like a pretty consistent theme throughout all of FFXIV, even back in ARR when the original three city-states lack of regard for the beast tribes and thier place in the lands they lived in.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

They even hold ceremonies for the creations they get rid of.

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Do they? I know Hermes said a prayer for the lykaones he unmade. But Hermes was strange by the standards of the ancients. Everyone else seemed to regard the unmaking process as at most, regretable, as sad as having to abandon an artistic project because it isn't bearing fruit. Not something worthy of prayer or ceremony.

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

Do they? I know Hermes said a prayer for the lykaones he unmade. But Hermes was strange by the standards of the ancients. Everyone else seemed to regard the unmaking process as at most, regretable, as sad as having to abandon an artistic project because it isn't bearing fruit. Not something worthy of prayer or ceremony.

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If you complete both sidequest chains it leads to another sidequest where the observers feel bad for the creations the lykaones killed and they perform a sending for them.

These conversations have gotten weird lol

1. We get people trying to "end" the debate with "even Venat admits what she did was terrible" but had to be done
2. We have people having a hard time reconciling with "events can't be changed" but still think it would be better if we could.
3. We have people saying "look even Emet admits her plan was better"
4. We even had someone admonishing the creation of Zodiark in the first place as a Ponzi scheme
5. Sundering isn't as bad as murder... man that's a REAL can of worms to take that standpoint.

Just to get my standpoint out of the way. I was pretty much team "neither primal" because I felt that we had to survive on our own. So both sides had my suspicions in all honesty and even though I am entertained by the Ancients I still felt both primals were bad in the long run.

1. People pretty much KNOW Venat said she admitted to doing something terrible. If someone went up and shot up a bunch of people and just said "oh I know what I did was terrible" That's going to drop it because that person admitted it was terrible? That's not gonna end the debate :P

2. I get it, story wise this is supposed to be a closed loop. But time and time again people will want something better if the loop had been a bit more polished in presentation there would be less bickering about it.

3. Yes, okay great he says her plan was better and admits that Zodiark wouldn't have worked out as the final solution. But I'm going to be repeating myself here that it actually took BOTH parts of these plans to make a better solution. Ironic isn't it? Even Elidibus being somewhat "all over the place" in the spectrum of Ascians was right for the most part? A balance of light and dark.

4. No matter how you look at it- Venat's plan would not have worked without Zodiark. After all if she's not to change the future. What WOULD have been her plan? Was she just gonna make everyone still for eternity? We also don't know if per say if her plan would have worked with 1 shard of our being instead of subsequent rejoinings. I guess we can debate about it - but to me our story is told that we're partially rejoined. So Venat was WELL aware that people had to die for this - so either you get mad at people STANDING BY to allow death and destruction between parties to occur AS much as getting mad that the Etheriyans were possibly gonna cull more life. Either way both parties were just about death as much as they "cared for life"

We the WOL had to sort out the mess :P Even if at times we just seemed rather complicit.

5. This goes back into without Zodiark, there would be no other plan. We'd just be dead apparently since certain groups are so adamant about how Zodiark is bad, evil and the Ancients didn't care

Again, not saying Zodiark is the great guy, or Hydaelyn was the big evil. One over the other cannot happen because without one the other could not actually exist in either opposition or held up the planet on its own.

Also adding on to 5. in my post above. I really really am hesitant to put that in some morally grey with "better for everyone" I'm not saying Sundering itself for the plan to work out is bad, but I really question the easy morality of saying if it's not "murder" then it's better

It's like people don't know or remember the whole history of lobotomy. I mean we're basically mind wiped, possibly put into immediate danger/death in sundering. Had our bodies messed without consent. If someone said "well at least you were raped instead of murdered" that person would get a swift punch in the face and baby maker :P

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Originally Posted by Garnetiferous

And how is this different from how the modern, sundered world treats us? It's even worse for them because in a lot of cases we literally save them and still several people treat us poorly. It's a major aspect of the DRK 30-50 questline actually.

Coming from the perspective of Emet claiming they're "perfect" then yeah things like that are clearly a point against them but some of the standards used on the ancients, not even the sundered would pass.

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Oh, no that's exactly my point the way they treat us isn't noticeably better then random sundered Sidequest givers. Which is fine, doesn't make them evil but them not being noticeably better then Sundered about it goes back to Emet's justification being really flawed on its face.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

You seem to be confused…

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Spare me the condescension. My point is that using those three as a baseline is ridiculous, given they were clearly exceptional individuals. Using their reaction doesn’t tell us anything.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

Why could she not have left and enacted a plan against Meteion…

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Venats plan A was the defeat of Meteion, based on my read. The Mothercrystal, as well as the reserve of strength she kept for our trial make that clear. And why couldn’t she just leave? To where? To a plant unprotected by Zodiark where Meteion would find a weakened, separated group of Ancients and immediately kill them? It seems obvious why that wasn’t in the cards.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

It's obvious that they are not the same, my point is only that a very vague line of distinction is made purely for the purposes of narrative convenience.

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That’s your subjective take.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

You're wrong. Flat-out. People do so every day without even thinking about it. WoL has done it on countless occasions.

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What a dim view of people.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

Venat does not say that they would specifically need Hermes "expertise" for anything…

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Okay this is not logical. If you genuinely believe that what she means is that he’s generally a smart guy, and not that he is an expert in a field that will be invaluable come the Final Days then I’m done. The Convocation, a group of smart people brought together as experts in their field, do not need another “smart guy” and he certainly wouldn’t be “invaluable in the crises to come.” Come on.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

Not only is the entire thing a godawful contrivance with little logic behind it, what Venat is talking about with Hermes there is her MO to a T - Withhold knowledge from someone and try to manipulate them into aiding your cause, even when revealing the truth of the situation to them might make them your enemy...

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You’re letting your distaste for a certain character cloud the reality of what happened.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

They didn't buy her arguments regardless. Either way she was predicating them on lies.

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Assumptions.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

That was quite literally their plan with the third sacrifice.

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https://i.imgur.com/kndKLrw.jpg

This does not sound like animals being sacrificed to me.

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Originally Posted by Slatersev

Oh, no that's exactly my point the way they treat us isn't noticeably better then random sundered Sidequest givers. Which is fine, doesn't make them evil but them not being noticeably better then Sundered about it goes back to Emet's justification being really flawed on its face.

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I don’t think this one example makes Emet’s justification flawed, especially when there’s numerous other examples to look at. They are pretty noticeably better at it though because again, they do hold ceremonies for them, and i don’t see any poachers around Elpis so… yeah.

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Originally Posted by Garnetiferous

If you complete both sidequest chains it leads to another sidequest where the observers feel bad for the creations the lykaones killed and they perform a sending for them.

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Huh, I wonder if that's standard for all the creations they unmake, or if the fact that they were killed created a special circumstance. That being said, I don't think anyone here thinks the ancients didn't value life. Just that they valued it in a way that was paternalistic and a bit arrogant. Especially with how they treat the WoL.

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Originally Posted by Slatersev

Oh, no that's exactly my point the way they treat us isn't noticeably better then random sundered Sidequest givers. Which is fine, doesn't make them evil but them not being noticeably better then Sundered about it goes back to Emet's justification being really flawed on its face.

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Fair enough then.

I think with Emet-Selch, he knew for a very long time that he was wrong but was so overcome by grief and sorrow that no matter what he did, he couldn't accept it. And one of the tales from the shadow, he did almost give up the whole rejoining thing. The line about the Ancient society being perfect, well, of course, he thinks that, his society was indeed perfect for him. Like a pair of the ultimate rose-colored glasses. So yeah, clearly he's bias.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

I don’t think this one example makes Emet’s justification flawed, especially when there’s numerous other examples to look at. They are pretty noticeably better at it though because again, they do hold ceremonies for them, and i don’t see any poachers around Elpis so… yeah.

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Elpis is a remote preserve in the sky you can't even go to without permission. If they DID somehow manage to let any type of poacher get there it would display a stunning lack of competency, but even then the Sundered have there own preservation that lacks any poachers. IE Labrinthyos.

And the ceremony they hold was sweet, but its not treated as standard fair at all.

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Originally Posted by Slatersev

Elpis is a remote preserve in the sky you can't even go to without permission. If they DID somehow manage to let any type of poacher get there it would display a stunning lack of competency, but even then the Sundered have there own preservation that lacks any poachers. IE Labrinthyos.

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Also - what incentive is there to be a poacher when you have godlike powers and want for nothing? There is no trade in illicit monster parts, and no economic incentive for the ancients to take up illegal poaching. (Or if there is, then thier society is even more flawed than I thought.)

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Originally Posted by Slatersev

Elpis is a remote preserve in the sky you can't even go to without permission. If they DID somehow manage to let any type of poacher get there it would display a stunning lack of competency, but even then the Sundered have there own preservation that lacks any poachers. IE Labrinthyos.

And the ceremony they hold was sweet, but its not treated as standard fair at all.

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Doesn’t change my point though. Poachers have 0 respect for wildlife. They don’t hold any ceremonies. I mean even non-poachers, the sundered we see slaughtering animals left and right seem to do so with no remorse where even the Ancients did. So i don’t see how they’re arrogant. It’s like with some people takes the ancients are damned if they do damned if they don’t. People keep trying to find ways that the ancients aren’t superior to the sundered when for all intents and purposes based on what we’re shown they kinda are lol. Like i brought up before, we literally summon our own creations who are actually more advanced than 90% of the ancient ones we see in Elpis, as the ones we summoned could speak, and then we slaughtered them There's the familiars we see led by Matoya where theyre effectively slaves to do her bidding, or the smn egi's etc. There’s a pretty stark contrast there.I think in the end people realize they’re living in a very flawed society and so the thought of even a fictional society being better than theirs rubs them the wrong way, so then they try and tear said society down brick by brick looking for the smallest of flaws(when half of them don’t even make sense)

If anything, I wouldn't be surprised at a strong black market around the equivalent of patent theft, with how preoccupied they are with following trends and fads (the sharks) and worry about their creations seen as too close to or derivative of someone else's, and effort made to suborn or use nepotism and connections to influence the Bureau of the Architects and Convocation to influence whose creations are seen and/or approved.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

We cant prove what life it was. But it is imo quite telling that the end goal of the Ascians was to sacrifice the remaining people of the source after every rejoining was done. Those would have been people with complete souls. People who once might have been Ancient themselves. So I have a hard time seeing how back in the days when they were also already tempered they would not think about "lesser" races as not suitable.

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I don't think its very fair to compare to the Ascians of the present to the Convocation of back then. I mean look at them; Lahabrea had lost his mind, Elidibus was a forgetful shell of his former self, and Emet-selch was so plagued with spite and loneliness that his morals sank into depravity for the sake of the Rejoining. That's part of why he was so disgusted with the version of him that was described in Elpis, as you pointed out. So no, I do not really think it's the best basis for comparison. The Ascians at that point have all endured millennia of suffering and despair, and are likely far more desperate for their old lives than they would have been in the past. If you want to talk about things that we really don't know, its to what extent Zodiark's 'tempering' had an effect, if at all. He wasn't summoned using a corruptive method, as we were told, and yet still has a sort of "pull." But towards what? He has no will of his own, outside of Elidibus. We know he wasn't demanding sacrifices or anything like that. He was, for all intents and purposes, a revered tool. Emet-selch is also, compared to basically every other tempered person we've seen, extremely high-functioning and essentially exactly the same as he always was. In fact, when we see Emet again in Ultima Thule, soul cleansed and all, he regrets nothing about what had transpired before, and basically just concedes his defeat. If Elidibus is able to disconnect from him and seek peace with Venat at the cost of Zodiark's power and influence, this tempering can not be anything significant, in my view. But again, it's pretty vague, so it's up for debate.

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Originally Posted by Garnetiferous

Fair enough then.

I think with Emet-Selch, he knew for a very long time that he was wrong but was so overcome by grief and sorrow that no matter what he did, he couldn't accept it. And one of the tales from the shadow, he did almost give up the whole rejoining thing. The line about the Ancient society being perfect, well, of course, he thinks that, his society was indeed perfect for him. Like a pair of the ultimate rose-colored glasses. So yeah, clearly he's bias.

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I wouldn't concede the point so quickly, because we're talking about something that is effectively, in their eyes, an arcane construct - Elidibus sent you back into the past much in the way he summoned some of the aether of the WoLs during SoS (albeit weaker), and Emet fortified that a bit - they had originally thought you were a familiar created by Azem and attributed any similarity in your soul hue to that (implying I think that the creator could pour some of their own soul aether into the creations) - you are then to present yourself as a familiar. Hythlodaeus and Emet-Selch possess exceptional soul sight, so for ancients lacking this, they had little reason to think you're anything but a familiar; and even those who could discern a soul might think it is aether imbued by the creator of the concept. Bearing in mind even various plant and animal lives would gain souls and thus become living beings (and much like with us humans, they don't automatically assume that because something is a living being, that it's of equal status to them; a very niche and questionable moral position anyway), and that we know from Hermes that the assessment of whether a creation actually gained a soul was a complex business that fell to Hyth's office (probably for the very reason I mentioned about Azem's soul hue), it is an extremely low threshold, a being similar perhaps to an egi or if we ramp it up, a primal. Pretty human-like beings in guise potentially, but not necessarily actual people. Perhaps some, having gained souls, could come closer to it, but that's a separate matter - certainly if it was the case with the Meteia, Hermes withholding examination of the concept meant there was no definitive answer on that. Emet-Selch shifted his perspective on the sundered over time, and only once he became satisfied that they could suffice as stewards of the star, or at least was reaching that point (i.e. the Amaurot reconstruction.) Here is the rub: the sundered are not ultimately familiars cooked up in Elpis. They just look like them because they're so aetherically thinned out. In context, the sundered are Emet's people, but fractured, and the focus of the Ascians is on restoring these souls to their complete form. Any such inferences about the sundered are therefore not transitive to the creations in Elpis. To say he is wrong requires one to say the sundering was justified - in turn, that requires one to accept that Venat's plan was the only one that could've worked, which is nothing but supposition ultimately. Hades made his peace with her plan as ultimately the writers' goal is fan appeasement where everyone's fan faves gets a happy ending more or less, that we're now stuck with due to the time travel gimmicks. But to me, I am not committed to taking his word for it that her plan secured a better future than they could've. It does not suffice for me.

When it comes down to it, for me, no I don't see the Unsundered World as a utopia- or at least one that appeals to me. The society itself I find off-putting. And even if I didn't have the attachment of playing through as my WoL, if I was offered two game choices, one playing as Azem in the Unsundered World, and the other playing, oh, as Ardbert in the First - I am going to pick Ardbert. As a game and as the one more relatable to IRL mortal me. Plus, even as much as I grew to like Venat and like what little we have so far of Erich and Themis, they aren't more interesting or entertaining or charismatic than all the cast of Sundered characters. So that boils down joining the Ascian plan/working to preserve the Unsundered world at the cost of the Sundered or not to its bare essence and why I choose what I will.

Cool. And for some of us, we prefer the ancients. So choose what you will. Others will choose differently. It matters little because the story is written as it is regardless.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

https://i.imgur.com/kndKLrw.jpg

This does not sound like animals being sacrificed to me.

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Why would it? It is post-Sundering... so it clarifies nothing.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

I wouldn't concede the point so quickly,

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While I agree with you on some aspects I don't think saying that Emet is wrong requires saying that the sundering is justified. From the perspective of the sundered like the WoL, who had no choice in the matter, then he's wrong. He wants to destroy their world regardless of whether he has a good reason for it. And from the perspective of the sundered as we see with Ardbert and the WoL, separate pieces of the same soul behave as different people. So, those people are perfectly justified in saying to the Ascians, "even though the event that created us maybe shouldn't have happened, you don't have the right to tell us that we're mistakes and should die for the sake of your people". Even if we take the view that the sundering shouldn't have happened, 12000 years later, the already existing sundered have a right to defend themselves.

Regarding the sundering and its necessity, I've pretty much maintained a neutral stance on this because I feel like there's several questions that need to be answered before I can make a judgment on Venat's actions. Like, how long from the 2nd sacrifice was it until the sundering? What was Azem doing? What was the life that was to be sacrificed to bring back the ancients? Was it just plants and animals or was it creatures much like modern people? Either way I don't think it was morally correct to do so which even Venat admits herself, but the answers to some of the questions would clear things up for me in determining whether it was truly a necessity or not.

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Originally Posted by Slatersev

Midy also has first hand knowledge that being "Unsundered" doesn't really matter much in terms of ability to survive as a society long term. Or ability to be decent. After all, the Omnicrons were a "full race" all those dead stars he passed on the way to Etheriys were from "full" peoples and look what it got them.

Midy has more reason then anyone to not really buy what the Ascians were selling. He has no reason to believe even if they got what they wanted they wouldn't end up the exact same way as any other dead star. If anything he would probably find them extremely arrogant and naïve to the wider universe.

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I'm failing to see the logic here. Against the omicrons, being sundered would indeed pose a problem, especially if they could fell even unsundered stars, albeit at a great cost in the case of the Dragonstar. The only reason sundered Etheirys might be spared from them is it would not even be regarded as worth the effort. The Omicrons were a full race, but they were also one that had digitised their entire existences (hence, I consider automatic inferences in the case of Omega, a construct's of theirs, to be referencing dynamis, to be purely speculative in nature) and had lost a great deal in the process. How might a 1/14th Source fare against a full blown invasion of their kind? 2/14ths? Etc. Most likely a non-issue with them because they gave up to apathy, but let's say another star did. Having a few heroes shielded by boatloads of plot devices and plot armour does not mean the rest of the aetherically divided Source would be able to handle an invasion from a hostile star at full strength. Were it not for that, the Endsinger would've devoured the souls on the star whole through the Final Days' repeat, so it's not like the sundered (albeit 7 times rejoined) Source itself is insulated from future risk, even if she is now gone.

And frankly, who cares whether he "buys" it or not? It is their people and star which were aetherically divided 14 times over. Not his. All he knows is that his people suffered an unfortunate fate before another star. He knows nothing of the future of the Source, of whether it too might succumb one day to a similar dead end to all those other stars. In the end, the only reason Hades and the other ancients were blind to the fate of the other stars is because this knowledge was withheld from them, thanks to Hermes as well as Venat and the time travel contrivances. Midgardsormr is none the wiser to it. Bit bizarre to hold it against them if the knowledge was never shared with them. Meanwhile, while some of his children got along with man, we know man's greed led to another getting locked in a brutal conflict with them, so it wasn't inevitable that this star's fate could've ended much the same as those others which turned hostile to the dragons, particularly if Nidhogg gained the upper hand. Again, you can thank the protagonists and all their plot armour for it not going that way.

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Originally Posted by Garnetiferous

While I agree with you on some aspects I don't think saying that Emet is wrong requires saying that the sundering is justified. From the perspective of the sundered like the WoL, who had no choice in the matter, then he's wrong. He wants to destroy their world regardless of whether he has a good reason for it. And from the perspective of the sundered as we see with Ardbert and the WoL, separate pieces of the same soul behave as different people. So, those people are perfectly justified in saying to the Ascians, "even though the event that created us maybe shouldn't have happened, you don't have the right to tell us that we're mistakes and should die for the sake of your people". Even if we take the view that the sundering shouldn't have happened, 12000 years later, the already existing sundered have a right to defend themselves.

Regarding the sundering and its necessity, I've pretty much maintained a neutral stance on this because I feel like there's several questions that need to be answered before I can make a judgment on Venat's actions. Like, how long from the 2nd sacrifice was it until the sundering? What was Azem doing? What was the life that was to be sacrificed to bring back the ancients? Was it just plants and animals or was it creatures much like modern people? Either way I don't think it was morally correct to do so which even Venat admits herself, but the answers to some of the questions would clear things up for me in determining whether it was truly a necessity or not.

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I'll grant that the "wrong" in this case depends on whose perspective we're viewing this from. I take it you mean the third round of sacrifices. As for the ancients who had the Sundering sprung on them with precious little understanding of what was truly going on behind the scenes...? From their view, it is sufficient that they are reversing a great injustice inflicted upon them. Even if Venat had some kind of moral qualms with the third round of sacrifice (and if it was just creations like those coming out of Elpis I can't say I'd share them), they still might not consider that good enough reason to sunder the star. In the end the entire plot is now mired in a bog of extreme vagueness so unfortunately we're just filling in holes through speculation, which they might address later on - or they might not. Hades tired, set a test for the sundered whereby he'd pass the baton, and honoured his word.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

Doesn’t change my point though. Poachers have 0 respect for wildlife. They don’t hold any ceremonies. I mean even non-poachers, the sundered we see slaughtering animals left and right seem to do so with no remorse where even the Ancients did. So i don’t see how they’re arrogant. It’s like with some people takes the ancients are damned if they do damned if they don’t. People keep trying to find ways that the ancients aren’t superior to the sundered when for all intents and purposes based on what we’re shown they kinda are lol. Like i brought up before, we literally summon our own creations who are actually more advanced than 90% of the ancient ones we see in Elpis, as the ones we summoned could speak, and then we slaughtered them There's the familiars we see led by Matoya where theyre effectively slaves to do her bidding, or the smn egi's etc. There’s a pretty stark contrast there.I think in the end people realize they’re living in a very flawed society and so the thought of even a fictional society being better than theirs rubs them the wrong way, so then they try and tear said society down brick by brick looking for the smallest of flaws(when half of them don’t even make sense)

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A poacher is someone who hunts rare animals illegally for money. In the world of the ancients, everyone has godlike powers, and wants for nothing. There would never be a poacher because nobody needs any money - because anyone, even children, could make pretty much anything they wanted with their godlike powers. Before the final days, no ancient ever struggled to make rent payments, or found themselves wondering how they would feed their children, or had an illness they couldn't afford to treat. All their basic needs were accounted for, at all times. Without a struggle for survival, without a world that has poverty or war, of course they were able to focus on bettering themselves and the star. This doesn't make them "superior" to the sundered people. It means they are starting with a distinct advantage that no sundered person would ever get. (or to steal a quote from another science fiction franchise "It's easy to be a saint in paradise." )

And even so - their society had flaws. Evidenced by the fact that people like Hermes felt the need to suffer alone, despite misgivings he had about the way things worked.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

Spare me the condescension. My point is that using those three as a baseline is ridiculous, given they were clearly exceptional individuals. Using their reaction doesn’t tell us anything.

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I'm just saying, those are not the same situations. And if we can't take their reactions into account, then frankly we have no baseline for what people in general would think. I also don't think their reactions would matter to begin with.

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Venats plan A was the defeat of Meteion, based on my read. The Mothercrystal, as well as the reserve of strength she kept for our trial make that clear. And why couldn’t she just leave? To where? To a plant unprotected by Zodiark where Meteion would find a weakened, separated group of Ancients and immediately kill them? It seems obvious why that wasn’t in the cards.

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Based on my read that was her final backup plan on the offchance somebody wanted to try and challenge her. And again - It was in Venat's cards, she was literally planning to do it and had been in communication with the Loporrits and Sharlayans about doing it.

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That’s your subjective take.

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I've seen other writers describe more sound narrative decisions in their own works as being worthy of derision for less.

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What a dim view of people.

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It's the correct view, one we see reflected in the game, life, and as I said by WoL themselves.

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The Convocation, a group of smart people brought together as experts in their field, do not need another “smart guy” and he certainly wouldn’t be “invaluable in the crises to come.” Come on.

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That's precisely my point. As it is, we have absolutely zero evidence that Hermes had any information of worth to add beyond what Venat already knew.

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You’re letting your distaste for a certain character cloud the reality of what happened.

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That's exactly what happened though. She didn't want to reveal the truth to him on the offchance that he could be made useful. She has a history of doing this now.

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Assumptions.

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When I presented the idea, that indeed was all it was. Not up to me if you don't find it of interest.

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This does not sound like animals being sacrificed to me.

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Exactly who is being disingenuous here? You know full well the situation at the time of the third sacrifice and the situation now, 12,000 years later, are nothing alike.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

I'll grant that the "wrong" in this case depends on whose perspective we're viewing this from. I take it you mean the third round of sacrifices. As for the ancients who had the Sundering sprung on them with precious little understanding of what was truly going on behind the scenes...? From their view, it is sufficient that they are reversing a great injustice inflicted upon them. Even if Venat had some kind of moral qualms with the third round of sacrifice (and if it was just creations like those coming out of Elpis I can't say I'd share them), they still might not consider that good enough reason to sunder the star. In the end the entire plot is now mired in a bog of extreme vagueness so unfortunately we're just filling in holes through speculation. Hades tired, set a test for the sundered whereby he'd pass the baton, and honoured his word.

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I meant the 2nd sacrifice. From what I understand of the timeline it goes Final Days > 1st sacrifice to summon Zodiark and put up his aether shield to stop Meteion's attack > 2nd sacrifice to restore the planet's capacity to sustain life > *indeterminate amount of time debating on what to do* > Convocation decided to nurture the planet and sacrifice a portion of its life to bring back those sacrificed > *more time here* > Summoning of Hydaelyn >*more time here*> Sundering

And yeah, I agree, from the Ascians point of view, they're trying to save their people and we're the ones standing in their way. So it makes complete sense why they're doing what they're doing.

Okay thanks for clarifying that. Yes, it's all very ambiguous in terms of the passage of time. :)

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Originally Posted by KariTheFox

A poacher is someone who hunts rare animals illegally for money. In the world of the ancients, everyone has godlike powers, and wants for nothing. There would never be a poacher because nobody needs any money - because anyone, even children, could make pretty much anything they wanted with their godlike powers. Before the final days, no ancient ever struggled to make rent payments, or found themselves wondering how they would feed their children, or had an illness they couldn't afford to treat. All their basic needs were accounted for, at all times. Without a struggle for survival, without a world that has poverty or war, of course they were able to focus on bettering themselves and the star. This doesn't make them "superior" to the sundered people. It means they are starting with a distinct advantage that no sundered person would ever get. (or to steal a quote from another science fiction franchise "It's easy to be a saint in paradise." )

And even so - their society had flaws. Evidenced by the fact that people like Hermes felt the need to suffer alone, despite misgivings he had about the way things worked.

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I’m not saying they’re flawless, but people are bashing them for things the sundered do far worse in is my point. People claim that both the sundered and the unsundered are the same when they aren’t. There’s no such thing as a perfect society in anything, but i think it’s fairly obvious the ancient world was pretty up there compared to the sundered world. Hermes felt the need to suffer alone but that’s his own fault, as we meet other npc’s who share the same misgivings as him, it seems that he himself didn’t go out and look and interact with said people. Also thank you for pointing out, you’re entirely correct. The ancients didn’t have to worry about illness or age, both things that venat herself created when she sundered the world and everyone on it. She made beings susceptible to those things so all those deaths can be pinned on her. Also i’d say a being is pretty superior if it’s essentially immortal and immune to illness than one that can die from the flu. My poacher comment seems to have gone over your head as it wasn’t even a poacher specific thing but an example, of the sundered committing worse things or doing the same things as the ancient world but people bash the ancient world for doing so and turn a blind eye to the sundered when they do it. Please look at the examples i have with eden primals,egi’s,poroggo familiars, because it seems like those points are being purposely avoided as they refute many of the opposition people have with the ancients.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

Venat does not say that they would specifically need Hermes "expertise" for anything. She says "well he's smart, and maybe his intelligence will be useful?" If you actually pay attention to her dialog in this scene, she suggests to WoL that the world may be completely different when you return to your own time, meaning that she is actually intending to do things differently. And yet she also says that the others being mind-wiped may have set the stage for a conjunction leading to the timeline remaining the same, meaning she knows that not telling the others increases the chances that everything goes unchanged and the Ancient's world is destroyed.

Not only is the entire thing a godawful contrivance with little logic behind it, what Venat is talking about with Hermes there is her MO to a T - Withhold knowledge from someone and try to manipulate them into aiding your cause, even when revealing the truth of the situation to them might make them your enemy. To be clear, this is a mistake, and leads to the deaths of billions as the Ancient's world is razed while everyone is scrambling around to figure out the cause of the situation. Keep in mind that she also says that she needs to "prepare their defenses", and yet absolutely nothing comes of this.

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She also mentions "securing our escape". This makes it harder to believe that her moon escape plan was not conceived with the genuine intention to pursue it had she felt the need to do so, in spite of some people writing this off as obviously never going to happen - there are so many uncertainties in the 12k years that followed that I consider any genuine ability to foresee every eventuality over that time span, including the development of the means to undertake time travel, to be rather fanciful at best, or at least prone to any number of possible setbacks arising, and it's all obscured through the shroud of the time travel itself sparing the need for any proper explanations. So it is not inconceivable she genuinely did intend to launch into space. We can but speculate on it until the developers choose to answer that question, which is why I don't really intend to discuss the plot much until we get some interviews, short stories etc., to see if they will address the gaps I see. With that said, I agree entirely with your characterisation of it.

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Originally Posted by SpectrePhantasia

I didn't get the chance to respond to this earlier, but I do think that is a very interesting point that you bring up. Venat and Emet-selch are both two sides of the same coin in terms of their ideals. Emet concluded only Unsundered life could lead to a full existence, while Venat believed that sundering it was the only way. Both go on to force their own righteousness on the entire world. Why then is Venat, the initial aggressor, considered a hero by the game's narrative, where Emet-selch is the villain to be slain? Why, when Emet-selch, at the very least, made the attempt to truly understand how the Sundered existed, and lived among them for lifetimes upon lifetimes? Conversely, Venat cast judgment on the entirety of her people and their lives, as they experienced the very first major Calamity their society has ever seen, and on a scale that dwarfs the umbral calamities of the shards. The end of the world as they know it, and she expects them to make a judgement call based on information only she is privy to. I understand there is context for her decision beyond this, but it still comes across as quite the double standard. Were we playing this game from the perspective of an Ancient, and Venat was spouting things about needing to 'divide the world and suffer, so that you can weather the coming storm,' we would absolutely see her as an antagonist to be in conflict with. She, like Emet, sees it as for their own good, but is that really her decision to make? As with Emet, I would say no, and I think the narrative would have benefitted greatly if it saw things in similar terms.

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Very well articulated.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

There's something to note here that I think hasn't been recognized very much - Emet-Selch's motives and ideals and Venat's motives and ideals appear to be exactly the same, simply flipped around. Emet believed that the Sundered were morally and physically deficient, selfish, indolent, given to the temptations of power, and both magically and ethically incapable of true fulfillment, and so they must be rejoined. Whereas Venat believed that the Ancients were morally and physically deficient, selfish, indolent, given to the temptations of power, and both magically and ethically incapable of true fulfillment, and so they must be sundered. Many of the arguments that were once applied to the Sundered, that they were inferior beings prone to self-destruction, are now being turned around and used with the Ancients to justify their destruction without a hint of irony.

It's stuff like this that makes me question whether the story was actually some kind of grand 5D meta commentary on the nature of narrative presentation and audience reception, or if everything was just a complete accident and they just unintentionally doubled back on a bunch of ideas they were trying to dispute.

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I didn't get the chance to respond to this earlier, but I do think that is a very interesting point that you bring up. Venat and Emet-selch are both two sides of the same coin in terms of their ideals. Emet concluded only Unsundered life could lead to a full existence, while Venat believed that sundering it was the only way. Both go on to force their own righteousness on the entire world. Why then is Venat, the initial aggressor, considered a hero by the game's narrative, where Emet-selch is the villain to be slain? Why, when Emet-selch, at the very least, made the attempt to truly understand how the Sundered existed, and lived among them for lifetimes upon lifetimes? Conversely, Venat cast judgment on the entirety of her people and their lives, as they experienced the very first major Calamity their society has ever seen, and on a scale that dwarfs the umbral calamities of the shards. The end of the world as they know it, and she expects them to make a judgement call based on information only she is privy to. I understand there is context for her decision beyond this, but it still comes across as quite the double standard. Were we playing this game from the perspective of an Ancient, and Venat was spouting things about needing to 'divide the world and suffer, so that you can weather the coming storm,' we would absolutely see her as an antagonist to be in conflict with. She, like Emet, sees it as for their own good, but is that really her decision to make? As with Emet, I would say no, and I think the narrative would have benefitted greatly if it saw things in similar terms.

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Originally Posted by SpectrePhantasia

I didn't get the chance to respond to this earlier, but I do think that is a very interesting point that you bring up. Venat and Emet-selch are both two sides of the same coin in terms of their ideals. Emet concluded only Unsundered life could lead to a full existence, while Venat believed that sundering it was the only way. Both go on to force their own righteousness on the entire world. Why then is Venat, the initial aggressor, considered a hero by the game's narrative, where Emet-selch is the villain to be slain? Why, when Emet-selch, at the very least, made the attempt to truly understand how the Sundered existed, and lived among them for lifetimes upon lifetimes? Conversely, Venat cast judgment on the entirety of her people and their lives, as they experienced the very first major Calamity their society has ever seen, and on a scale that dwarfs the umbral calamities of the shards. The end of the world as they know it, and she expects them to make a judgement call based on information only she is privy to. I understand there is context for her decision beyond this, but it still comes across as quite the double standard. Were we playing this game from the perspective of an Ancient, and Venat was spouting things about needing to 'divide the world and suffer, so that you can weather the coming storm,' we would absolutely see her as an antagonist to be in conflict with. She, like Emet, sees it as for their own good, but is that really her decision to make? As with Emet, I would say no, and I think the narrative would have benefitted greatly if it saw things in similar terms.

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https://i.imgur.com/R1mnQQF.gif

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Originally Posted by SpectrePhantasia

Why then is Venat, the initial aggressor, considered a hero by the game's narrative, where Emet-selch is the villain to be slain?

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Venat also shares a striking amount of similarities to Hermes. One's a villain and one's a hero, it's part of why I felt like the narrative was gaslighting me.