(ShB Spoilers) Didn't Hydaelyn, uh...

[RopeDrink]

...Kind of murder billions of people?

The sundered were not exactly murdered, simply rendered into 14 shards of themselves that all end up living new lives on an equally sharded world of their own. You can argue that this act certainly did end one life per sundered if you view it a certain way, but the reality is they weren't exactly "killed", thus murder is not the correct word. It'd be different if the sundering snuffed out each and every one of those lives. Instead, she essentially diluted lives into a glob of water and splattered it all over the place to exist all over the universe without any memory of the original droplet it started from.

But the main differences is that it's Zodiark's people that start the war

And where did you hear this?

Last I remember, the Ancients concocted a plan (after being 'kinda-saved' by Zodiark) to nourish the world and then sacrifice life born through that new power to re-create those who were initially sacrificed to Zodiark to stop the calamity in the first place. Think of it like sacrificial recycling. However, certain Ancients did not agree with this plan, thus they split from the group and performed a similar sacrifice to summon Hyde - a Zodi-Counter. I do not recall ANYTHING being said about Zodi-worshippers instigating a war with the other group, only that a new faction arose to create Hyde, who eventually sundered the planet and all but three inhabitants. A lot of these details often boil into he-said-she-said with our only source of (potentially) correct information coming from the horse's mouth itself, Emet-Selch, who is happy to point out that Hyde might be inclined to convey a completely different story to what he tells us. In short, we'll never really, REALLY know, but for the most part it wasn't so much a civil war, rather than a hidden portion executing their own plan.

At least, that's how it was to me. As said, I saw no mention whatsoever of those groups actually 'fighting' eachother. Emet simply refers to them as foolish nay-sayers who followed their own path and caused the divide.

[Lurina]

Technically yes.

But it was basically something wrong vs something wrong.
Sacrifying new lifes form to resurrect all the Ascian pre-Apocalypse would also have been the murder of billions of people.

I guess I have two things to say to this. First, this is very ends-justify-the-means logic. Even if we accept what Hydaelyn did as a ultimately necessary and positive act, we're talking about someone killing massive amounts of people as collateral damage in a bid to stop the villain. If this was any other person or faction save Hydaelyn herself, I think there'd be a lot more people who would be unable to permit it as a reasonable solution.

But second, if we do accept that a soul being sundered is death, Hydaelyn killed everyone in the world except for 3 people. No matter how big a sacrifice Zodiark had required, by definition it would be less murder than what actually transpired.

The sundered were not exactly murdered, simply rendered into 14 shards of themselves that all end up living new lives on an equally sharded world of their own. You can argue that this act certainly did end one life per sundered if you view it a certain way, but the reality is they weren't exactly "killed", thus murder is not the correct word. It'd be different if the sundering snuffed out each and every one of those lives. Instead, she essentially diluted lives into a glob of water and splattered it all over the place to exist all over the universe without any memory of the original droplet it started from.

Well, what I was trying to say in the OP was that the story itself seems to conceptualize this kind of messing with a person's essence as essentially murder by any other name. A rejoining causes someones soul to be merged with another (or rather, restored with the original broken soul), following which they live on as "part" of that person, if only in a spiritual regard. We see this happen with Ardbert.

The game, however, minces no words in defining this as murder when it is done by force, even though by your reasoning no complete termination has occurred.

[TankHunter678]

The game, however, minces no words in defining this as murder when it is done by force, even though by your reasoning no complete termination has occurred.

Though Emet-Slech's description of how the sundering worked did not present any conclusion that the person hit by the sundering was actually killed or even considered dead, merely made lesser. Emet-Selch himself considers those born with the lesser version of the souls to not actually be alive and thus destroying them does not constitute murder. They are not of his people, the unsundered, thus he does not truly care about them, as much as he has tried in the past to care about them.

The rejoining constitutes as murder in the eyes of those who do live with those lesser souls because they see value in their own life when the one doing the murdering sees no value in their life and thus does not see it as murder.

[Lurina]

Though Emet-Slech's description of how the sundering worked did not present any conclusion that the person hit by the sundering was actually killed or even considered dead, merely made lesser.

Could you elaborate on this a bit? Emet-Selch explicitly states that the Sundering resulted in everyone losing more or less all their memories of their previous lives, while of course their souls (and possibly bodies?) were also maimed/transformed in the process. Both this and the rejoining are basically processes where the identity of the victim is lost, but the spiritual essence is retained, though changed. I wouldn't dispute that the rejoining is also murder, but what leads you to conceptualize one as death, but not the other?

[Daralii]

Could you elaborate on this a bit? Emet-Selch explicitly states that the Sundering resulted in everyone losing more or less all their memories of their previous lives, while of course their souls (and possibly bodies?) were also maimed/transformed in the process. Both this and the rejoining are basically processes where the identity of the victim is lost, but the spiritual essence is retained, though changed. I wouldn't dispute that the rejoining is also murder, but what leads you to conceptualize one as death, but not the other?

Depending on how many people on any given shard are actually the reincarnations of sundered souls, the destruction of that world could kill billions. Meanwhile, the Calamities that trigger one(with the exception of the 7th, which was mitigated), cause enough damage on the Source to end civilizations. Can you imagine how many lives were claimed in the Calamity of Water or Calamity of Ice?

[Ariane]

Could you elaborate on this a bit? Emet-Selch explicitly states that the Sundering resulted in everyone losing more or less all their memories of their previous lives, while of course their souls (and possibly bodies?) were also maimed/transformed in the process. Both this and the rejoining are basically processes where the identity of the victim is lost, but the spiritual essence is retained, though changed. I wouldn't dispute that the rejoining is also murder, but what leads you to conceptualize one as death, but not the other?

Well they somehow were able to make murals about it, and Emet-Selch even says there was a time when everyone understood what the murals depict.

[LineageRazor]

Well they somehow were able to make murals about it, and Emet-Selch even says there was a time when everyone understood what the murals depict.

Remember that Emet-Selch has made numerous attempts to try to connect with mortals. In those very early days, Lahabrea and Elidibus may have, as well. They could have communicated with people on the Shards in those early days, studied them, tried to figure out how the new world order worked, and whether it might be best to just accept it. Obviously, they came to the conclusion that "it's gotta go", but they certainly could have told those early people stories of Zodiark, Hydaelyn, the Great City, and the Sundering that ended it all, stories which those people then recreated as artwork.

[Ardox]

Well they somehow were able to make murals about it, and Emet-Selch even says there was a time when everyone understood what the murals depict.

And Ascians could have tried to make them remember before going the genocidal route.. I don't think it means anything really

Remember that Emet-Selch has made numerous attempts to try to connect with mortals. In those very early days, Lahabrea and Elidibus may have, as well. They could have communicated with people on the Shards in those early days, studied them, tried to figure out how the new world order worked, and whether it might be best to just accept it. Obviously, they came to the conclusion that "it's gotta go", but they certainly could have told those early people stories of Zodiark, Hydaelyn, the Great City, and the Sundering that ended it all, stories which those people then recreated as artwork.

welp.. I should have read the whole thread before posting

[RopeDrink]

Hythlo did say that this divided their race so it seems that there were more than a handful of them against it. So if they had just accepted it and looked forward to the future and not be stuck in the past then no split would have started. So in a way you could say that they started the "war" between those two crystals.

There is only mention of a divide in belief, as showcased on the murals and explained in dialogue. There is no mention of any kind of conflict between those two groups that I'm aware of, hence I'm saying it's unfair to regard one side or the other as guilty of instigating such a thing. As said, I do not recall any mention anywhere that one side went against the other openly, only that both sides had a very firm believe that conflicted with the other - one that wanted to sacrifice new life to bring back what was lost, and another that wished to preserve the new life and leave what was lost behind.

As mentioned by Hythlo, this was rendered null-and-void when Hyde split them all.