Quote Originally Posted by Absimiliard View Post
Provided this rings true, that would mean Hydaelyn effectively annihilated the only extant sapient species on that world - and the world itself, essentially - for no reason other than the fact that a minority of Ascian society strongly disagreed with using new, non-intelligent life to restore the lives of intelligent, sapient creatures that had made the ultimate sacrifice for their world and their people.
Just a quick note, here - it is strongly likely that it was not all non-intelligent life. The Spoken races exist on all Shards, and that means that they were around prior to the Sundering. The New Life the Council hoped to sacrifice included these intelligent races - but being mortal and ephemeral as they were, the Council saw them as lesser life forms (I mean, the wretched things all die in a century or so anyway - what kind of existence is that?), and thus not worthy of consideration.

It is quite unlikely that the Dissenters summoned Hydaelyn merely to preserve some trees and deer. There were almost certainly intelligent races included in the reckoning.