[SPOILERS] Dawntrail should get an ARR-style retcon in the post-MSQ

I have not seen many people discussing the true implications of what Wuk Lamat has done by the end of the MSQ: Wuk Lamat effectively committed a genocide on the Endless (the Alexandrian ruling class), and then installed a puppet proxy king in the form of Gulool Ja (a non-native). They even emphasize this by stating Wuk Lamat will be there to "guide" the literal baby in his role as king. Wuk Lamat killed the leaders of Alexandria and is now in control of it, she conquered them.

Not a SINGLE Alexandrian pushes back against this, for some reason. Their beloved-beyond-all-words queen Sphene, whom has been their ruler for hundreds or thousands of years, and led them in a peaceful and happy existence was overtly killed by Wuk Lamat. The ONLY reaction to this is a small blurb of dialogue about how they "mourned their queen". Not only that, but many of them feared and disliked Zarool Ja, and would be unlikely to support his wishes for succession. This is honestly a disgrace of writing and the only way things end up like this are purely due to the writers making it that way.

Not only all that, but Dawntrail's entire final plot arc is totally antithetical to everything done in Endwalker and even to Final Fantasy IX. The MSQ almost feels intentionally spiteful to anyone who resonated with the messages in those other stories. Endwalker's ultimate plot was set in motion by Hermes who became distressed at the callous mistreatment of "lesser souls" and Creations (whom were living and experienced feelings) by the Ancients, who did not acknowledge their sentience, and his questioning the purpose of life which led to him creating the Meteia and forming nihilistic ideas. FFIX's many themes revolve around life and death, and the sanctity of all forms of life, no matter how they are created or born. By the end of FFIX, Kuja himself comes to terms with being able to make his life what he wants it to be, and Vivi's whole personal arc centers on him coming to terms with being an artificial creation without a soul and understanding that even if he was created he is still a valuable living person that should live life to the fullest. In Dawntrail, we are made to erase the Endless from existence because they are a "facsimile", a claim by Cahciua (who is not a member of the Alexandrian society), while the Endless are clearly sentient people that practice a different way of life and afterlife that's more similar to the Ancients. Cahciua herself should know that, as she lives both inside and outside Living Memory to the extent she managed to form a resistance organization, she is very clearly self-aware, has feelings, desires, needs, etc. The Endless are living things. All of the logic for why it was "okay" to erase the Endless is reductive at best and downright malicious at worst, and is completely derogatory to the lessons on the sanctity of life in Endwalker and in FFIX. And it never needed to be like that, had the writers had any amount of competency.

After finishing the Dawntrail MSQ, I felt gross and disappointed, to be honest. This story made me feel genuinely disgusted in what I was forced to take part in by Wuk Lamat. Wuk Lamat herself is a nearly sociopathic character for a variety of reasons, and her goofy incompetence quickly devolved into causing genuine harm and destruction to an entire civilization and way of life because she, for once, couldn't understand it.

I see no way that this can be repaired aside from introducing some sort of restoration project for Living Memory, which is now a literal PHYSICAL SCAR within the game of what we were made to do. Wuk Lamat needs to be narratively confined to her palace and phased out of the story, while the Scions and WoL deal with setting things right for her with the Alexandrians, and working towards getting them a fairly chosen ruler of actual Alexandrian heritage.

I understand many people will probably not fully agree with everything I've said, but the main thing stands that the writers did an UNFORGIVABLE disservice to the Alexandrian people and their entire arc. They existed to be conquered and be a vehicle for Wuk Lamat's ambitions and "growth"(non-existent). More could be said about how Krile was backseated when this should have absolutely been her expansion too, but there's enough as it is, one thing at a time.

The Endless are AI's. They are not "clearly sentient people." They are AI's programmed to act like the people they are based on, but as we see in the case of Sphene, even that programming can be "tweaked" to emphasize or de-emphasize things about them. They are the equivalent of ChatGPT's given bodies. EW was about valuing beings that were actually real, living creatures. DT is about letting go and moving forward with our lives.

Also, don't forget that Alexandria itself effectively invaded and conquered part of Tural. It exists on the Source, in Tural, and is part of Tuliyollal's empire (including the Turali people it took away from their own lives by isolating them inside the dome). In the end, Alexandria invaded Tural, fought a war against Tuliyollal and lost, and is now part of Tuliyollal's empire as a result.

It may be time to step away for a bit. When someone reaches the point of shouting about "unforgivable" things in a video game and declaring the writers incompetent because one personally doesn't like the story they wrote, that sounds like a good sign it's a healthy move to detach oneself.

Dawntrail is essentially a district 9 sequel. The denizens of s9 are prawns and the souls the cat food they love.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

The Endless are AI's. They are not "clearly sentient people." They are AI's programmed to act like the people they are based on, but as we see in the case of Sphene, even that programming can be "tweaked" to emphasize or de-emphasize things about them. They are the equivalent of ChatGPT's given bodies. EW was about valuing beings that were actually real, living creatures. DT is about letting go and moving forward with our lives.

Also, don't forget that Alexandria itself effectively invaded and conquered part of Tural. It exists on the Source, in Tural, and is part of Tuliyollal's empire (including the Turali people it took away from their own lives by isolating them inside the dome). In the end, Alexandria invaded Tural, fought a war against Tuliyollal and lost, and is now part of Tuliyollal's empire as a result.

It may be time to step away for a bit. When someone reaches the point of shouting about "unforgivable" things in a video game and declaring the writers incompetent because one personally doesn't like the story they wrote, that sounds like a good sign it's a healthy move to detach oneself.

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The endless are 100% implied to have sapience because an AI program created to eternally preserve a persons memories would be unable to take steps towards ending its own existence. Cauchia is definitive proof the endless have a degree of agency

The endless (via cauchia, Otis, krile’s parents and the proposal NPC) are all fully aware they are endless and understand how their programming works but also have shown to act beyond it, particularly the proposal NPC who states he has been spat out by the system before and never made a move for his finance but chose to do it this time because he is unsure of how long the existence of the endless can last (a common thread amongst the endless in that they understand that their existence isn’t forever), in that scene he breaks out of the implied temporal lock that exists amongst the endless. The NPC that makes the game for you in yesterland and changes his age when he realises that his childhood form doesn’t make him happiest is another example

The endless may not be human but they are 100% sapient, they aren’t the people they were based on, they are different entities that use the memories of the deceased Alexandrians as a foundation

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

The endless are 100% implied to have sapience because an AI program created to eternally preserve a persons memories would be unable to take steps towards ending its own existence. Cauchia is definitive proof the endless have a degree of agency

The endless (via cauchia, Otis, krile’s parents and the proposal NPC) are all fully aware they are endless and understand how their programming works but also have shown to act beyond it, particularly the proposal NPC who states he has been spat out by the system before and never made a move for his finance but chose to do it this time because he is unsure of how long the existence of the endless can last (a common thread amongst the endless in that they understand that their existence isn’t forever), in that scene he breaks out of the implied temporal lock that exists amongst the endless. The NPC that makes the game for you in yesterland and changes his age when he realises that his childhood form doesn’t make him happiest is another example

The endless may not be human but they are 100% sapient, they aren’t the people they were based on, they are different entities that use the memories of the deceased Alexandrians as a foundation

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Yep, Cahciua calls the Endless a facsimile. A facsimile is an exact copy of the original. It's equivalent to a clone and in this case, the clone is fully sentient. The only difference is how they store the memories. You can just think of the terminals as a specialized version of the Soul Vessel the scions used at that point.

Sphene herself is sentient but probably the only exception to the Endless being different since she was created by Preservation to keep the Endless going no matter what cost (so she's the only one where her existence has been tampered with after transferring the memories over, hence her ego telling us to stop her when she makes a choice she doesn't have control over in the flashback before Trial 3). Everyone else though, they're real people and treated as such. Even Constancy mentions how they have taken great effort to maintain the integrity of the memories, so it will feel no different from when they were flesh and blood.

One element of the Endless situation that bothered me somewhat was how easily we were able to flick the terminal 'off switch' in general. Other than the Messo terminal there were no safeties in place on the other ones at all. Granted, the Endless themselves couldn't do anything with them but considering that neither the Endless nor the 'robots' could tell that 'we' were living, you'd have thought there would've been something in place to prevent tampering. But no - we just wandered up to them and turned them off.

I hate the endless situation so much because it conflicts so heavily with my personal headcanon that i wrote to be so beige that i thought there was no way they could conflict with it

Like due to traumatic events in my WOL’s past he can’t bring himself to end someone’s life purely on the basis that that person can be deemed non human (yes his past involves slavery how could you guess)

Like how beige is that? The apparently benevolent WOL can’t even avoid declaring others as non human then massacring them. It’s horrid, I completely rewrote the ending of DT in my WOL’s headcanon because of how badly the conflict with the morals of the endless is with his worldview

Dawntrail is a parody and not meant to be taken seriously, we're still asleep on the boat on the way to Tural.

Did you really think the writers would mess up such a simple sci-fi concept after Shadowbringers and Endwalker? Surely you jest.

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Originally Posted by YojimboM

I have not seen many people discussing the true implications of what Wuk Lamat has done by the end of the MSQ: Wuk Lamat effectively committed a genocide on the Endless (the Alexandrian ruling class), and then installed a puppet proxy king in the form of Gulool Ja (a non-native). They even emphasize this by stating Wuk Lamat will be there to "guide" the literal baby in his role as king. Wuk Lamat killed the leaders of Alexandria and is now in control of it, she conquered

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Your problem is assuming Wuk Lamat had enough brain cells to rub together to conceptualise any of this. If anything like 99.99% of what she done in Dawntrail was reacting without thinking which is pretty much her character anyway lol. Furthermore, again I don’t even think Lamat is smart enough to conceptualise the idea of colonising Alexandria lol; she isn’t going to extent any sort of ‘control’ over them anyway besides giving them whatever help they need?

Also maybe it’s harsh but frankly I still do not see how you can ‘genocide’ computer programs, no matter how realistic they are. I mean the souls are all released back into the aetherial sea right? We’ve literally done the exact opposite of a genocide by turning the terminals off because those souls will go on to create new life. If we’d done nothing they’d still be trapped in Living Memory being used to fuel a projection of someone that isn’t even them anyway.

Stealing people’s literal souls and using them to try and cope with grief seems just as unforgivable to me. If the dead can live on through memories does it really matter if a machine is projecting a manifestation of those memories? Or is it enough for them to live on in our memories ; in that way they never truly leave us. kinda thought that was the entire point of the storyline but I guess it was about murder lol

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Originally Posted by Connor

Also maybe it’s harsh but frankly I still do not see how you can ‘genocide’ computer programs, no matter how realistic they are. I mean the souls are all released back into the aetherial sea right? We’ve literally done the exact opposite of a genocide by turning the terminals off because those souls will go on to create new life. If we’d done nothing they’d still be trapped in Living Memory being used to fuel a projection of someone that isn’t even them anyway.

Stealing people’s literal souls and using them to try and cope with grief seems just as unforgivable to me. If the dead can live on through memories does it really matter if a machine is projecting a manifestation of those memories? Or is it enough for them to live on in our memories ; in that way they never truly leave us. kinda thought that was the entire point of the storyline but I guess it was about murder lol

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If they are just programs then most of the second half of dawntrail is just roleplaying with chatbots...

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Originally Posted by Rin_Sato

Dawntrail is a parody and not meant to be taken seriously, we're still asleep on the boat on the way to Tural.

Did you really think the writers would mess up such a simple sci-fi concept after Shadowbringers and Endwalker? Surely you jest.

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Considering how bad I thought Endwalker was, yes, I think they would mess it up because they already have. There is so much atrocious writing in the game that I think the one jesting here must be you with your suggestion that they are self aware enough for Dawntrail to be intentionally written as a parody. Even if it somehow was, that's just more upsetting because they need to keep this garbage to Hildibrand and not put it into the MSQ.

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Originally Posted by Rin_Sato

If they are just programs then most of the second half of dawntrail is just roleplaying with chatbots...

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Pretty much, ChatBots that have been programmed with the memories of a previously living people to give the impression of life. I mean, Chatbots can seem sentient too if they have machine learning, right? (They also turn bizarrely prejudicial when drawing from the internet lol but let’s assume we have the technology to perfect it).

It’s basically FFXIV Black Mirror lol. They look and seem human, but that’s only because of the technology at play being highly advanced. I mean, if the Endless were truly sentient then Cahciua or Krile’s parents could’ve just pulled the plug on themselves or willed themselves to shut down, right? They could conceptualise the idea but their programming wouldn’t let them actualise it

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Originally Posted by Connor

Pretty much, ChatBots that have been programmed with the memories of a previously living people to give the impression of life. I mean, Chatbots can seem sentient too if they have machine learning, right? (They also turn bizarrely prejudicial when drawing from the internet lol but let’s assume we have the technology to perfect it).

It’s basically FFXIV Black Mirror lol. They look and seem human, but that’s only because of the technology at play being highly advanced. I mean, if the Endless were truly sentient then Cahciua or Krile’s parents could’ve just pulled the plug on themselves or willed themselves to shut down, right? They could conceptualise the idea but their programming wouldn’t let them actualise it

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I hope this is bait

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Originally Posted by Rin_Sato

I hope this is bait

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Nope

If I was going to bait or troll why would I choose such a specifically niche topic and not one of the many many ‘Wuk Bad / Wuk Good’ threads?

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Originally Posted by Striker44

The Endless are AI's. They are not "clearly sentient people." They are AI's programmed to act like the people they are based on, but as we see in the case of Sphene, even that programming can be "tweaked" to emphasize or de-emphasize things about them. They are the equivalent of ChatGPT's given bodies. EW was about valuing beings that were actually real, living creatures. DT is about letting go and moving forward with our lives.

Also, don't forget that Alexandria itself effectively invaded and conquered part of Tural. It exists on the Source, in Tural, and is part of Tuliyollal's empire (including the Turali people it took away from their own lives by isolating them inside the dome). In the end, Alexandria invaded Tural, fought a war against Tuliyollal and lost, and is now part of Tuliyollal's empire as a result.

It may be time to step away for a bit. When someone reaches the point of shouting about "unforgivable" things in a video game and declaring the writers incompetent because one personally doesn't like the story they wrote, that sounds like a good sign it's a healthy move to detach oneself.

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This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think it's better if we drop these philosophical themes and just have a story being action-driven and entertaining without digging deep into the morale & understanding holes.

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Originally Posted by Kranel_San

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think it's better if we drop these philosophical themes and just have a story being action-driven and entertaining without digging deep into the morale & understanding holes.

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It sounds like you want something that isn’t an RPG.

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Originally Posted by Rin_Sato

If they are just programs then most of the second half of dawntrail is just roleplaying with chatbots...

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I'd say more like roleplaying with Skynet, given that these particular chatbots have the ability to commit mass murder in order to get the aether they need to keep going...

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Originally Posted by Striker44

I'd say more like roleplaying with Skynet, given that these particular chatbots have the ability to commit mass murder in order to get the aether they need to keep going...

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None of the Endless that we kill has any power at all. The only one remotely able to affect out physical world is Cahciua and she has one measly non-combat drone. None of them has any hostile intent towards us either, the only thing driving that is the meddling that Preservation has done to override Sphene's free will as the system's 'control unit', saddling her with an absolute need to do anything and everything to keep a flawed system going.

Also, if we remain consistent in the view on what is and is not alive and/or worthy of equal right to life, as built up through the entirety of SB, ShB and EW, then there was no question that these memory constructs formed a living society, just not as we know it. So I am going to make the following somewhat odd statement.. while you could argue iRL whether or not the Endless were alive and therefore whether or not what happened was genocide, within the specific context of Final Fantasy XIV, this was indeed genocide, because the game's own lore in the previous expansions had already established an in-lore threshold for treating alternative forms of existence as alive, one that the Endless were well within. You can only argue moral relativism from an iRL point of view, if the setting of the game defaults to iRL viewpoints -- but in this case, the setting already had its own rules, and by those, yes it was a genocide.

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Originally Posted by Eyrilona

None of the Endless that we kill has any power at all. The only one remotely able to affect out physical world is Cahciua and she has one measly non-combat drone. None of them has any hostile intent towards us either, the only thing driving that is the meddling that Preservation has done to override Sphene's free will as the system's 'control unit', saddling her with an absolute need to do anything and everything to keep a flawed system going.

Also, if we remain consistent in the view on what is and is not alive and/or worthy of equal right to life, as built up through the entirety of SB, ShB and EW, then there was no question that these memory constructs formed a living society, just not as we know it. So I am going to make the following somewhat odd statement.. while you could argue iRL whether or not the Endless were alive and therefore whether or not what happened was genocide, within the specific context of Final Fantasy XIV, this was indeed genocide, because the game's own lore in the previous expansions had already established an in-lore threshold for treating alternative forms of existence as alive, one that the Endless were well within. You can only argue moral relativism from an iRL point of view, if the setting of the game defaults to iRL viewpoints -- but in this case, the setting already had its own rules, and by those, yes it was a genocide.

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Agreed. I am certain many others have said the following before I have, too:

If they at least had rigorous debate to reach a conclusion, discussed it with the inhabitants and they all agreed to being shut down? Ok, that's their choice at that point.
The WoL gang takes the decision from them, nevermind even considering if the decision should be made.

For being an expansion about learning about new cultures and being open to their customs, the protagonists sure seemed hellbent on destroying and conquering foreign ones.
And before anyone replies "it wasn't their intention" or "with good intentions". Yeah they *coincidentally* killed most of their population (as they considered them to be alive). They *coincidentally* killed their beloved ruler. They *coincidentally* installed a puppet king. Colonial/imperial Europe/Britain would blush.

Further, the "chatbots" linger after the machines are shutdown fully autonomously, they just lack a power source to live longer (iirc). Come on, that's so obviously sapient, there's not a machine controlling them at that point, is there? Or is the next argument going to be necrotechnology?

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Originally Posted by Connor

Pretty much, ChatBots that have been programmed with the memories of a previously living people to give the impression of life. I mean, Chatbots can seem sentient too if they have machine learning, right?

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As someone who regularly trains chatbots for work, not really. The more chatbots are given something novel to deal with, the more (almost every time) they go off the rails trying to find something to cope with the unexpected information. I doubt bun mom previously had experience piloting a robot body to lead a revolution against a technocracy before she died.

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Originally Posted by Rin_Sato

If they at least had rigorous debate to reach a conclusion, discussed it with the inhabitants and they all agreed to being shut down? Ok, that's their choice at that point.

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I have a feeling this is the direction they originally wanted to go, but it was too heavy for our "vacation" expac and Hiroi doesn't have the chops to write anything nuanced with any sort of intellectual debate.

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Originally Posted by Rin_Sato

Dawntrail is a parody and not meant to be taken seriously, we're still asleep on the boat on the way to Tural.

Did you really think the writers would mess up such a simple sci-fi concept after Shadowbringers and Endwalker? Surely you jest.

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The old writing team trained their replacements wrong, as a joke. They think bad stories are good.

I do not think Dawntrail needs a rewrite, I think they need to just move past the entire storyline, completely. Interdimensional key and all. For me the "story" died long ago and I am content to click sparkly nodes til all the zones are unlocked and I can do maps or gather in the new zones til I burn out.

The quote - story- unquote , for the last zone maybe last two zones had a cool premise but it is like they worked overtime to ensure it was delivered in the most foolish and cludgelord way they could concieve to do so. The last story trial did not deliver in any way near the same way Shadowbringers OR Endwalker did, and I felt like the last main xpac story trial of Endwalker was kind of bleh also, but at least the mechanics were cooler.

They need to just focus on ways to improve the game, instead experience. My suggestion is decouple MSQ progress from zone access. Maybe dont unlock the dungeons as all are pretty much story related, but at least let people see the world with their friends when they get the game. I do a lot of treasure hunting, and when I get a sprout in my FC and ask in FC if anyone wants to do maps, and the sprout is like ME , and I have to explain they need to progress the MSQ to get access to the zones, well that has always been a bummer to them. I post reports , very detailed reports in discord of who got what treasure gil, and crazy things that happened, these reports are popular with the crowd i run with, people have joined my fc from the reports and I love that.

Sorry to derail with that suggestion, but in light of the mess of Dawntrail story, I feel like this is a good reason to decouple zone access from msq progress.

How many times does this have to be repeated?

It does not matter one bit whether or not the Endless were sentient or not, real or not, etc. Discussions like that are a distraction.
What does matter is that their existence was unsustainable, and as a result it would either eat itself alive, or someone like Sphene would harvest souls from outside of their sphere of influence as fuel for the Endless to continue existing. The debate on sentience is a red herring. The cruelty they would inflict is what causes them to become an enemy and it simply becomes two entities fighting for survival. And at this point, we are simply morally 'more alive'. They already had a life, they died, and they should not get a second chance at life if it means that another person's soul has to be forcefully harvested for it. If you can just make this technology exist without having to slurp up all the aether, go right ahead. Until then, the technology is unsustainable and immoral.

This is such a simple concept. But you get stuck on whether or not they're real or not.
Let's say we give you what you want, and yes, they ARE real, and ARE sentient, and they ARE intentionally harvesting souls for their own selfish needs. Does that make it better? Would you sacrifice yourself so they can continue existing? Would you force others to just let themselves get harvested for them?

Get over it and use some critical thinking skills. Sphene and Alexandria were not "grey" in morality. They were deep dark black, with a mask of cooperation and well-wishing that you were believing and you were betrayed but you don't quite believe it, so you feel guilty at what happened at the end of Dawntrail.

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Originally Posted by Chiru_Kai

Snip....

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You're right that sentience is a red herring, but not in the way you mean it. Sentience is only part of the problem that people mostly get hung up on. The issue is that everyone just nods their collective heads and agrees without any real hesitation. We spent half an expac coming up for an answer to Emet Selch's question, we could've spent more than 30 seconds before just agreeing. If in the end, we had to end them, that's fine, but we should've at least tried to figure something out -- even if it failed in the end. Why not at least talk to the Omicrons or Cid? The WoL has near infinite anima, we can teleport at anytime. All that time we spent running around talking to people we were inevitably going to turn off could've actually been used on something productive. Oh wait, we needed something to do in that last zone, so once again story took a backseat to the formula.

The issue is not sentience. The issue is bad writing and the story taking a backseat to the formula with the endless just being another example of how the game suffered because of it.

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Originally Posted by Chiru_Kai

Get over it and use some critical thinking skills

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Take your own advice, and actually read what's being written. Everyone who criticizes the last zone already fully understands this fact about the endless. The issue is not about whether or not erasing them was the solution, the issue is that the writer thought they could get away with glazing over the gravity of what's being done with a "lighthearted" tone. The endless are real or not real at the whims of whatever tone the writer wanted for a given scene.

Why didn't we spend longer on the question of whether they are truly living? Why did none of them want to stop us, especially the ones who only found happiness after death? Why was there no conflict whatsoever besides remarks of "this is kind of sad huh, oh well!" from our companions, relegated to optional dialogue as passive quest npcs. Why were we deliberately shown that the endless are thinking, emotional beings, capable of learning new information and growing, showing again and again that they are functional indistinguishable from living people?

Why were the Endless, who all came from a society that was practically built around the fear of death, suddenly just fine with being relegated to complete oblivion when we come to kill them in the afterlife they were promised? The answer is because the author wanted to have his cake and eat it too. "Oh [player], aren't you so sad because you have to erase these people and make Erenville and Krile have tearful goodbyes with their parents ? Don't worry, they aren't really that broken up about it, because I didn't want you to feel TOO bad :)"

Yes, it was necessary to erase the endless, because the author chose to write them that way. And yes, what we did was horrendous despite its apparent necessity. The tone and proceedings of Living Memory should have been informed by this, and instead it was a happy-go-lucky romp through disneyland, putting on plays and taking history quizzes, having a great time committing genocide. Oh and Erenville seems depressed, better completely ignore him and his suffering until the end of the zone so he can have his big moment with his mom.

The writing of the Endless is atrocious no matter what way you look at it. That is what people take issue with. You think we're struggling to grasp a "simple concept", but that's because the "simple" surface reading is the only thing you're grasping at all.

The Endless are not sentient. Some of them may be able to take independent action but at their core, they are memory data existing in a loop running on a computer that is powered by, and I cannot stress this enough, COSUMING THE SOULS OF LIVING BEINGS.

As more people die, more Endless are created, requiring more power, requiring more souls, so on and so forth. It is unsustainable exponential growth. Sphene would have burned the world and every reflection, and it would not have been enough.

The Endless represent the inability to let go, to accept death as part of life. Then you have the regulators, which remove the memories of someone that has died. Their whole system is designed to remove the pain of loss, but it also deprives them of the ability to grieve and to find happiness in those memories.

There is no moral discussion when it comes to deleting the Endless because there is only one realistic option, as painful as it may be for some. I will say that the only positive aspect of the Endless is that Erenville and Krile got some form of closure (poorly written though it was). But the average Alexandiran doesn't have that option.

It certainly wasnt handled elegantly.
Especialy considering the plan didnt even work at the end.
"Remove the Endless so Sphenes program to sustain it stops" didnt happen we still had the fight.
They could have chosen a different reason during the writing aswell, not that it even would have been a easy situation but they did write themself into this Situation.

At this point I just think anyone that genuine think Living Memory was a genocide and against the WoL lore is just posting bait. It's a bad take from day 01 and will remain being a bad take, together with vast non comprehension skills, and several mental gymnastics to "prove" their point.

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Originally Posted by OMGJesuis66

At this point I just think anyone that genuine think Living Memory was a genocide and against the WoL lore is just posting bait. It's a bad take from day 01 and will remain being a bad take, together with vast non comprehension skills, and several mental gymnastics to "prove" their point.

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Exactly.

Since we don't consider them to be truly alive, we should not feel any form guilt from ending their existence.

And of course I get as response the cringe Emet-Selch quote... Stg, the brainwash this community had for Emet and the Ancients fucked up all the future conversations about narrative. Really make me dislike all those arcs and characters even more.

But okay, let me do a proper post here.

Living Memory, by its standards, is an artificial Aetherial Sea. Denizens inside are not alive, their behavior, dreams, aspirations and sentience comes from their memories of when they were once alive.

The accurate statement that each individual there is, is that the are Ghosts. We are familiar in FFXIV that Ghosts hold memories and wants from when they were alive, and most of them builds rancor towards the living for being capable to do the things they desire to do, but are unable to. Thus, turning into monsters.

An addendum to that, is that on Deadwalk, we are in a portion of Living Memory where the fault of Aether made the place unstable and shatter, the memories in the terminal there turned into their own sorrows and became what? Monsters. In particular, Ghosts.

If by any means you want to argue that what we did in Living Memory was a genocide, you also need to consider all the Ashkins killed by us in the past and consider every Ashkin as an actual living being. From Palace of the Dead, to Sirensong Sea, etc, etc.

The formula to create both Ashkins and the Endless is the same. Incorporeal Aether (Souls), Life Force and Memories. Therefore, no. None of them are alive, none of them are real beyond what their memories made of them, and they are unable to make new ones.

Living Memory passed a beautiful message to understand, respect and carry on the legacy of those who fell before you, while you allow them to rest and finally sleep as the deserve so you can keep moving forward and carry their burdens with you and with respect.

But to resume that to "genocide" is of such dishonesty and a disservice to the place that's stunning af.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

The endless are 100% implied to have sapience because an AI program created to eternally preserve a persons memories would be unable to take steps towards ending its own existence. Cauchia is definitive proof the endless have a degree of agency

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No it's not. Otherwise you may as well call the current AI tech we have as Sapience. And I'm not talking about generative AI. There are a lot of stream/chat AI that can seemingly give reaction/opinion based on their assigned personality. I can link you a few video if you want.

You're talking about self-preservation code/program which for the most part is a Hollywood invention. Remember that even though most human has strong self-preservation instinct, we're still capably of making sacrifice. Since Cauchia is a big picture person, it's not strange for a program that simulate her to come to the same conclusion. In fact, you argument would make more sense if the program makes a decision that show a divergent from its original template.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

Yep, Cahciua calls the Endless a facsimile. A facsimile is an exact copy of the original. It's equivalent to a clone and in this case, the clone is fully sentient.

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No it does not, and I'll give you one word: Otis.

The sentient argument only makes sense if all Endless are like the mechanical Otis. Meaning they are a unique existence.

There is a saying: there is only one existence to a life.

And it's heavily implied that mechanical Otis inherit the original soul, than what the hell is the Z6 Otis if not just a fake copy? And if Z6 Otis is a fake copy, than by proxy all the Z6 Endless are as well.

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Originally Posted by sylphlands

It also feels especially bad because I don't know how anyone could argue that Wuk Lamat doesn't colonize these people. We killed Alexandria's leader and installed a new king.

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Please explain to me how keeping the known Son of the King who has reigned Solution 9 for 30 years alongside Sphene, and the rightful succession heir, in his rightful position bestowed by the King, is colonizing.

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Originally Posted by noumen0nn

Take your own advice, and actually read what's being written. Everyone who criticizes the last zone already fully understands this fact about the endless. The issue is not about whether or not erasing them was the solution, the issue is that the writer thought they could get away with glazing over the gravity of what's being done with a "lighthearted" tone. The endless are real or not real at the whims of whatever tone the writer wanted for a given scene.

Why didn't we spend longer on the question of whether they are truly living? Why did none of them want to stop us, especially the ones who only found happiness after death? Why was there no conflict whatsoever besides remarks of "this is kind of sad huh, oh well!" from our companions, relegated to optional dialogue as passive quest npcs. Why were we deliberately shown that the endless are thinking, emotional beings, capable of learning new information and growing, showing again and again that they are functional indistinguishable from living people?

Why were the Endless, who all came from a society that was practically built around the fear of death, suddenly just fine with being relegated to complete oblivion when we come to kill them in the afterlife they were promised? The answer is because the author wanted to have his cake and eat it too. "Oh [player], aren't you so sad because you have to erase these people and make Erenville and Krile have tearful goodbyes with their parents ? Don't worry, they aren't really that broken up about it, because I didn't want you to feel TOO bad :)"

Yes, it was necessary to erase the endless, because the author chose to write them that way. And yes, what we did was horrendous despite its apparent necessity. The tone and proceedings of Living Memory should have been informed by this, and instead it was a happy-go-lucky romp through disneyland, putting on plays and taking history quizzes, having a great time committing genocide. Oh and Erenville seems depressed, better completely ignore him and his suffering until the end of the zone so he can have his big moment with his mom.

The writing of the Endless is atrocious no matter what way you look at it. That is what people take issue with. You think we're struggling to grasp a "simple concept", but that's because the "simple" surface reading is the only thing you're grasping at all.

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Just seconding all of this - 100% sums up my feelings on this zone. The tone doesn't match the setting or the theme, the Endless have no real personalities or beliefs (besides loving their great leader), and no one puts up any sort of fight against us, not even verbally. At the end of the day, Hiroi just doesn't know how to write conflict or realistic emotions. It's atrocious.

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Originally Posted by sylphlands

Just seconding all of this - 100% sums up my feelings on this zone. The tone doesn't match the setting or the theme, the Endless have no real personalities or beliefs (besides loving their great leader), and no one puts up any sort of fight against us, not even verbally. At the end of the day, Hiroi just doesn't know how to write conflict or realistic emotions. It's atrocious.

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well if you go back and look at cowboy with rubber bullet things ... that is a pattern that track pretty consistently throughout the expansion.

It's like they want to make an AO rating movie ... but with kids as the target audience.

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Originally Posted by OMGJesuis66

And of course I get as response the cringe Emet-Selch quote... Stg, the brainwash this community had for Emet and the Ancients fucked up all the future conversations about narrative. Really make me dislike all those arcs and characters even more.

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I mean, why would you not blame the writers who introduced all this convoluted bs in the first place.

It's almost as if we have mixed messaging all over the place coming from a shallow of understanding of philosophical topics and the writers trying to force their view coupled with bad writing down my throat.

The Emet quote fits though.

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Originally Posted by sylphlands

I'd argue that he's the son of a hostile invader who took the role of king by force and subjugated Alexandria's citizens. It just felt bad to me and seemed to go against the (poorly written) themes of DT.

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He didn't subjugated Alexandria by force. Sphene and Zoraal established in agreement for her need of self preservation, a newformed government where both share powers as King of Resolve and Queen of Reason. The military forces were developed and controlled by Zoraal, and while his ways did left people if Alexandria with fear after he turned his own soldiers against his own people, it did not change that Gulool is the rightful heir in the absence of the two previous rulers, and all the control the King of Resolve had was passed to him with Zoraal death.

I believe the tensions and build up of Gulool as a proper leader will be addressed in the patches as they come, since the people are tense with a new leadership that reminds them of their previous leader that tried to kill them all, and they need to build trust into the new baby King.

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Originally Posted by OMGJesuis66

But okay, let me do a proper post here.

Living Memory, by its standards, is an artificial Aetherial Sea. Denizens inside are not alive, their behavior, dreams, aspirations and sentience comes from their memories of when they were once alive.

The accurate statement that each individual there is, is that the are Ghosts. We are familiar in FFXIV that Ghosts hold memories and wants from when they were alive, and most of them builds rancor towards the living for being capable to do the things they desire to do, but are unable to. Thus, turning into monsters.

An addendum to that, is that on Deadwalk, we are in a portion of Living Memory where the fault of Aether made the place unstable and shatter, the memories in the terminal there turned into their own sorrows and became what? Monsters. In particular, Ghosts.

If by any means you want to argue that what we did in Living Memory was a genocide, you also need to consider all the Ashkins killed by us in the past and consider every Ashkin as an actual living being. From Palace of the Dead, to Sirensong Sea, etc, etc.

The formula to create both Ashkins and the Endless is the same. Incorporeal Aether (Souls), Life Force and Memories. Therefore, no. None of them are alive, none of them are real beyond what their memories made of them, and they are unable to make new ones.

Living Memory passed a beautiful message to understand, respect and carry on the legacy of those who fell before you, while you allow them to rest and finally sleep as the deserve so you can keep moving forward and carry their burdens with you and with respect.

But to resume that to "genocide" is of such dishonesty and a disservice to the place that's stunning af.

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You should really re-read the entire lore instead to realize how much errors you have in understanding the concepts you wrote.

We do kill for a living as an adventurer. We do commit murders, but done with a self justification. When there are Ashkins that hurt others, it gives us a reason to remove them. There is a reason why DRK has such a good storyline because it goes into detail about what our actions, even justified, can cause to others. We do things because it's righteous, but even so there's consequences in our actions.

Ashkins like zombies are sentient (see: Manderville storyline with the 4 gentlemen of light). As much as a joke of a storyline it is, the implications of the storyline shows a clearer view of the interactions of other races post-death. However, not all of them were taken careful means to preserve their memory as in the case with the Endless.

The Endless are not actively trying to hurt others, they end up hurting others by their means of creation (needing aether to sustain themselves).

And if you're going to say they can't make new ones, you basically just said Cahciua hasn't made a single new memory after we see her interact with Erenville in LM and outside of LM.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

No it's not. Otherwise you may as well call the current AI tech we have as Sapience. And I'm not talking about generative AI. There are a lot of stream/chat AI that can seemingly give reaction/opinion based on their assigned personality. I can link you a few video if you want.

You're talking about self-preservation code/program which for the most part is a Hollywood invention. Remember that even though most human has strong self-preservation instinct, we're still capably of making sacrifice. Since Cauchia is a big picture person, it's not strange for a program that simulate her to come to the same conclusion. In fact, you argument would make more sense if the program makes a decision that show a divergent from its original template.


No it does not, and I'll give you one word: Otis.

The sentient argument only makes sense if all Endless are like the mechanical Otis. Meaning they are a unique existence.

There is a saying: there is only one existence to a life.

And it's heavily implied that mechanical Otis inherit the original soul, than what the hell is the Z6 Otis if not just a fake copy? And if Z6 Otis is a fake copy, than by proxy all the Z6 Endless are as well.

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You forget Otis is also the exception where he had Experiments done in his memory. Other Endless simply die and have their memory uploaded to the Cloud, creating a continued existence in their life.

Otis, along with Sphene, are more or less the rare exceptions because they don't follow the normal procedure to having their memories uploaded after death without any tampering. Otis was still alive when his memory was uploaded (hence he does not have any shared memories of robot Otis), but the same cannot be said for other Endless. Besides, what constitutes as a fake? For the Endless, they are effectively copied over. It's more akin to a clone.

And Clones already have established in-lore reasons for being "alive" through ARR to Endwalker even if they aren't the originals. Even if you don't see the Endless as the same person, they are still "alive" in another sense.

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Originally Posted by genuine_stranger

I mean, why would you not blame the writers who introduced all this convoluted bs in the first place.

It's almost as if we have mixed messaging all over the place coming from a shallow of understanding of philosophical topics and the writers trying to force their view coupled with bad writing down my throat.

The Emet quote fits though.

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You are right, it has been a convoluted bs since Shadowbringers with their approach of morality being obviously false, but played by a charismatic character enough to gaslight the community into thinking he is right, much likely as when people think Walter White is the hero in Breaking Bad.

Never forget that people here also think that Venat committed genocide.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

You should really re-read the entire lore instead to realize how much errors you have in understanding the concepts you wrote.

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Please do tell me where I am wrong, because the conception of Ashkins is something that I often read plenty and I would love to know more.

You are right that the Endless do not try to hurt us, and I am not saying they are mindless monsters. Just that they are Ghosts and we stepped into their artificial mausoleum/fish tank.

Their souls deserve to be freed and return to the Sea, the entirety of it, much as likely any tragic existence of Ashkins.

Necromancy is not cool, be it made by magic or tech, and I am pretty sure all the concepts I spoke are very solid.