Something about the new Ascian lore

[Absimiliard]

Here's the real question: In what way is Emet-Selch wrong?

Consider the following:
- Humanity has never needed Ascian help to spawn wars. Most of the wars that have occurred on the Source were actually not the work of Ascians. Granted, they are always there in the background, but there have been plenty of known instances where people were quite willing to do the deed without the need for prodding from higher beings.
- Emet-Selch may not be wrong in treating current humanity as little more than gnats. The races that were created by the sundering haven't actually evolved at all from the get-go. Sure, they've adapted to new environments and come up with some interesting technology, but their aetheric and physical capabilities remain largely unchanged. Even most of their actual advanced technology--i.e. that which was/is employed by the Allagan and Garlean Empires, respectively--is at least partially a result of Ascian assistance.
- Consider the Ascian view. They are in effect literal gods that can do virtually anything they want - even reshape reality to suit their ends. An Ascian dealing with an ordinary hyur is about the equivalent of a real life human dealing with a lone fire ant that decided to sting them.
- Would the Rejoining be that bad? Probably not. People would be whole again, their original memories and identities restored. They would be free to live in a star-spanning Utopian society where concepts such as violence, vagrancy, destitution, hunger, sickness, and pain no longer have any presence or meaning. Everyone would exist in a state of parity, free to live out their lives joyfully creating whatever their hearts desire with their newfound (or technically newly restored) powers of creation.
- Is it truly wrong for someone to seek to regain so many things that were, at least from their perspective, unfairly taken away? To Emet-Selch, everything he sees serves as a constant reminder of what was lost when Hydaelyn smote Zodiark.

[TankHunter678]

- Humanity has never needed Ascian help to spawn wars. Most of the wars that have occurred on the Source were actually not the work of Ascians. Granted, they are always there in the background, but there have been plenty of known instances where people were quite willing to do the deed without the need for prodding from higher beings.

The Ascians have been behind every major dominating civilization thus far from what we have found and created the situations that lead to every single major war that lead to cataclysmic destruction and rampant chaos. It can be argued that Humanity would naturally go to war with itself, but the Ancients were very much in a similar situation. They may have tried to avoid confrontation where they could and tried to keep disagreements in just debate but with them developing automata for the purpose of waging proxy wars for them, or various beasts that could be used for similar, they were not far off from winding up fighting each other like the "lesser" humanity. Not to mention the scale of conflict with just humanity fighting itself would not reach such cataclysmic results so easily.

- Emet-Selch may not be wrong in treating current humanity as little more than gnats. The races that were created by the sundering haven't actually evolved at all from the get-go. Sure, they've adapted to new environments and come up with some interesting technology, but their aetheric and physical capabilities remain largely unchanged. Even most of their actual advanced technology--i.e. that which was/is employed by the Allagan and Garlean Empires, respectively--is at least partially a result of Ascian assistance.

The logic behind Emet-Selch's dismissing of the current humanity is very much reminiscent of every other leader that has gone on a genocidal warpath and elevated their race up to being the best, those others are not his people so they are inferior and killing inferior beings not on your level does not constitute murder or genocide. While the races created by the sundering have actually evolved quite drastically from their Ancient roots. What does not help them is the fact the Ascians keep hitting the reset button every few hundred years with rejoinings.

- Consider the Ascian view. They are in effect literal gods that can do virtually anything they want - even reshape reality to suit their ends. An Ascian dealing with an ordinary hyur is about the equivalent of a real life human dealing with a lone fire ant that decided to sting them.

They are in effect just really powerful beings who had to summon a god to fix a problem that was very likely created by their own messing about with reality. If they were in effect literal gods then they would not have needed to summon forth a being they identify as a god to solve their problem. They would not have needed to sacrifice half of their remaining population to repair the world. They would have been able to stop the terminus themselves and repair the world themselves.

- Would the Rejoining be that bad? Probably not. People would be whole again, their original memories and identities restored. They would be free to live in a star-spanning Utopian society where concepts such as violence, vagrancy, destitution, hunger, sickness, and pain no longer have any presence or meaning. Everyone would exist in a state of parity, free to live out their lives joyfully creating whatever their hearts desire with their newfound (or technically newly restored) powers of creation.

Considering that when a soul enters into the lifestream it is stripped of all memory and identity then even if they were restored and all the rejoinings done they would have no memory and have to build new personalities. Only those possessing the Echo which prevents them from being wiped clean of their memories and personality would be able to get those memories back.

Not to mention, the world of the Ancients still had violence, vagrancy, destitution, hunger, sickness, and pain. They worked on tools for proxy wars and saw other city states as competitors. They suppressed personal expression in an effort to reduce confrontations as those less gifted seeing others expressing their gift could lead to murder out of jealousy (which was the entire point of that side quest to try to make robes btw).

- Is it truly wrong for someone to seek to regain so many things that were, at least from their perspective, unfairly taken away? To Emet-Selch, everything he sees serves as a constant reminder of what was lost when Hydaelyn smote Zodiark.

The method he chose involves the slaughtering of everything his people sacrificed to rebuild to bring back his people who sacrificed themselves. It is literally spitting in the face of their sacrifice and tearing down everything they sacrificed for just to get them back. Which would have just lead to them sacrificing themselves again and the cycle repeating.

[Absimiliard]

Snipped due to post size constraints.

I had a wall-o-text typed up, but the 3000 character limit hamstrung me. I'll just shorten it to this:

There are no signs in-game or in other material that the Ascians were the ones to trigger the cataclysm that brought down their civilization. We know from in-game text and other official materials that they actually did have enough power to stop the cataclysm themselves - or would have, if its very nature hadn't been the direct cause of their powers going out of control. The resulting loss of control after hearing that sound was that ultimately necessitated the first summoning of Zodiark as they could not fix the problem themselves. Granted it was their own runaway powers after the fact that turned the sound from "huh, wth is this" to "oh crap, the world is ending".

While I concede that Emet-Selch wanting to kill all the things is spitting in the face of those who gave their lives, I do not believe it would restart the cycle. The world is already healed, after all. They only needed Zodiark to help with restoring it because it had been rendered completely incapable of even supporting life by the time the cataclysm abated. Fully rejoined Ascians would be able to populate the Source with new life themselves since it would still be able to support life this time.

The many sapient creatures resulting from the sundering legitimately have not evolved at all in the way the Ascians want to see. Their aetheric and physical capabilities have grown only as a direct result of the rejoinings carried out so far. The creatures failed to evolve on their own, unfortunately. While more intelligent than in the past, their technological achievements always seem to be traced back to the Ascians. Garlemald is copying Allag, and Allag got the bulk of its technology through Ascian involvement.

There really wasn't conventional conflict in the ancient Ascian civilization. Their "proxy wars" were more like chess games played through mindless creations incapable of making decisions, let alone feeling anything resembling pain - or feeling anything at all for that matter. There doesn't appear to be anything in-game or other materials that would suggest that their civilization included the impoverished or that there people were physiologically capable of becoming ill in the conventional sense. Indications are instead that they had a truly Utopian society until everything went to pot.

The majority of wars in the FFXIV timeline actually weren't the result of Ascians. A lot of the time it's just the "human" races having their petty disputes, crossing their collective blades, and going their separate ways after spouting a few platitudes back and forth. While most known cataclysms have been the work of Ascians, there are a few of those that came about through the hands of mankind as well.

[TankHunter678]

I had a wall-o-text typed up, but the 3000 character limit hamstrung me. I'll just shorten it to this:

There is no character limit on edits, so when you type out your wall of text just cut a big chunk out of it so that the post goes through and then edit the post to put the rest back in. That is what I do for my posts.

There are no signs in-game or in other material that the Ascians were the ones to trigger the cataclysm that brought down their civilization. We know from in-game text and other official materials that they actually did have enough power to stop the cataclysm themselves - or would have, if its very nature hadn't been the direct cause of their powers going out of control. The resulting loss of control after hearing that sound was that ultimately necessitated the first summoning of Zodiark as they could not fix the problem themselves. Granted it was their own runaway powers after the fact that turned the sound from "huh, wth is this" to "oh crap, the world is ending".

With what we know of Ancient Creation Magic all it takes is a single errant through to completely alter a result. We also know that their first reaction to an obstacle is to try to use their creation magic to create a solution. Even without an unidentified sound, which since the calamity started in a far off city could be anything including the cry of a monster that had managed to reach the city outskirts from said far off city, anything can cause a mass panic leading to the same result. When people do not know what something is their own imaginations become their worst enemy, and when habit dictates you use an ability that creates what your imagination generates to solve a perceived problem then it is a disaster waiting to happen. Especially for children who have even less self control then adults do.

While I concede that Emet-Selch wanting to kill all the things is spitting in the face of those who gave their lives, I do not believe it would restart the cycle. The world is already healed, after all. They only needed Zodiark to help with restoring it because it had been rendered completely incapable of even supporting life by the time the cataclysm abated. Fully rejoined Ascians would be able to populate the Source with new life themselves since it would still be able to support life this time.

To recap half the population sacrificed to summon Zodiark to fix the laws. Half the remaining population sacrificed to restore the world and the life on it. Emet-Selch wanted to sacrifice all the life on the planet to bring back the people who sacrificed their lives to not only restore the planet but repopulate its life. Which would mean that those people would have to sacrifice themselves again to restore the life that Emet-Selch and the convocation just sacrificed to get them back. Which means Emet-Selch and the convocation need to sacrifice that life their people just sacrificed to get back to get back those who sacrificed themselves again.

The many sapient creatures resulting from the sundering legitimately have not evolved at all in the way the Ascians want to see. Their aetheric and physical capabilities have grown only as a direct result of the rejoinings carried out so far. The creatures failed to evolve on their own, unfortunately. While more intelligent than in the past, their technological achievements always seem to be traced back to the Ascians. Garlemald is copying Allag, and Allag got the bulk of its technology through Ascian involvement.

And Allag came after the third calamity. Who likely got a fair chunk of their technology from the civilization that ruled at the time before the second calamity which likely had a lot of Ascian involvement just like Allag and Garlemald. Again if the Ascians were not causing massive world wide calamities every couple hundred years there would have been a lot more development. Not to mention that necessity is the mother of invention, if permitted the new "lesser" Humanity could have produced far greater works then the Ancients ever did in order to improve their lot in life. Though they were never really given a chance since a calamity every couple hundred years.

There really wasn't conventional conflict in the ancient Ascian civilization. Their "proxy wars" were more like chess games played through mindless creations incapable of making decisions, let alone feeling anything resembling pain - or feeling anything at all for that matter. There doesn't appear to be anything in-game or other materials that would suggest that their civilization included the impoverished or that there people were physiologically capable of becoming ill in the conventional sense. Indications are instead that they had a truly Utopian society until everything went to pot.

Emet-Selch tried to make it look like a Utopian society but the comments of the Shades and the side quests you had to do painted things very differently. A Utopian society does not include the chance of being murdered for showing individuality by others jealous of you, or your creativity being stifled to work off of government approved patterns, or other cities being seen as competition to wage war with through proxies both unfearing machines and full on creatures that can feel pain.

The majority of wars in the FFXIV timeline actually weren't the result of Ascians. A lot of the time it's just the "human" races having their petty disputes, crossing their collective blades, and going their separate ways after spouting a few platitudes back and forth. While most known cataclysms have been the work of Ascians, there are a few of those that came about through the hands of mankind as well.

Every cataclysm has been the result of the Ascians for their rejoining plans. Every war has been to lead to the situation of the calamity happening. While some of the minor wars did not have ascian involvement, the major ones to further their goals were.

[LineageRazor]

And Allag came after the third calamity. Who likely got a fair chunk of their technology from the civilization that ruled at the time before the second calamity which likely had a lot of Ascian involvement just like Allag and Garlemald. Again if the Ascians were not causing massive world wide calamities every couple hundred years there would have been a lot more development. Not to mention that necessity is the mother of invention, if permitted the new "lesser" Humanity could have produced far greater works then the Ancients ever did in order to improve their lot in life. Though they were never really given a chance since a calamity every couple hundred years.

While I agree that the Ascians likely had their fingers in most, if not all major conflicts on the Source, I'm not sure it's such a sure thing that there would have been a lot more development without their interference. The Ascians don't cause Calamities on the Shards (at least, not until the one big Flood prior to Rejoining), which is why the ruins in Tempest were in such good shape, while they've long since been pulverized on the Source (stated as that reason by the MSQ, no less). And yet, the advancement of the folks on the First does not seem significantly beyond that of the Source.

I can't say for sure why that is, but I suspect that the relatively rapid recovery of civilization after each Calamity on the Source can probably ALSO be attributed to the Ascians. They need to prop their dominoes back up so they can knock them down again, after all!

[Kokomi]

I'm not sure if it's worth it to think too hard about whether Emet-Selch was right.

First, there's a lot of surrounding circumstances that complicates things: in what ways, exactly, are shattered individuals "worse" compared to whole ones? (everyone on the Source is now 7 times rejoined but there is no difference between the people we meet on the First like Runar and Lyna vs. our friends in Eorzea). What would life be like if we were rejoined? (was Amaurot really a utopia without Emet's rose-colored glasses?) Is creation magic just too dangerous to have and we should remain sundered, anyway? Do the sacrificed Ascians actually want to be revived?

If we ignore all of these issues then the question boils down to weighing the value of different lives against each other. Emet's moral dilemma is basically a more elaborate version of the "trolley problem with fat man." He values the lives of the sacrificed immortals more than everyone he would be killing to get them back - but these are innocent souls who don't deserve to die and would have gone on just fine if he didn't interfere. There's no definitive answer to this problem. I think we should be glad that it's just a game and call it a day.

My personal take is that deep down, Emet knew he was wrong, but he had gone way too far to turn back and had to lie to himself to keep going. That's why he died with a smile on his face.

[Absimiliard]

without an unidentified sound, which since the calamity started in a far off city could be anything including the cry of a monster

Which would mean that those people would have to sacrifice themselves again to restore the life that Emet-Selch and the convocation just sacrificed to get them back.

Not to mention that necessity is the mother of invention, if permitted the new "lesser" Humanity could have produced far greater works then the Ancients ever did in order to improve their lot in life. Though they were never really given a chance since a calamity every couple hundred years.

Emet-Selch tried to make it look like a Utopian society but the comments of the Shades and the side quests you had to do painted things very differently. A Utopian society does not include the chance of being murdered for showing individuality by others jealous of you, or your creativity being stifled to work off of government approved patterns, or other cities being seen as competition to wage war with through proxies both unfearing machines and full on creatures that can feel pain.

Every cataclysm has been the result of the Ascians for their rejoining plans. Every war has been to lead to the situation of the calamity happening. While some of the minor wars did not have ascian involvement, the major ones to further their goals were.

We have confirmation that the source of the sound was "deep within the planet". The only thing that began in a distant city was the Ascians beginning to lose control of their powers of creation. The effect was as much physiological as it was psychological. The sound itself caused the initial loss of control while their subsequent fears lead to the escalation. We don't have confirmation one way or the other as to what lead to the world's laws starting to come unwound. I'm willing to say it may well have been the runaway Ascian powers, but that would never have happened if that sound hadn't interfered with their normal functions.

Sacrificing most of the remaining life on the Source would not require the Ascians to sacrifice themselves over again once revived. As mentioned in a prior post, part of what Zodiark did was restore the planet's ability to support life. It was rendered an uninhabitable husk by the first cataclysm. With the Ascians themselves able to create new life, it would be a simple matter for them to repopulate the world with new species.

The Final Fantasy franchise has nevery really subscribed to the "human potential" trope. It consistently depicts us as weak willed and easily corrupted, oft times building ourselves up only to destroy ourselves outright. It also consistently depicts us in a sort of stasis wherein we never manage to evolve beyond a set point even when outsiders don't interfere. The heroes of most Final Fantasy stories are forced to draw upon something beyond human to defeat their foes. That is mostly what Emet-Selch appears to be looking at. He doesn't care about their technological development at all. What he cares about is how close they can come to regaining the powers they lost while retaining their fragmented states. He really was telling the truth about changing his tune if satisfied with the WoL's potential. It's entirely possible he'd have kept his word and changed his tune if that same scenario played out after one more successful rejoining. After all, the WoL was able to control all the power he absorbed from the lightwardens once Ardbert gave up his individuality to initiate a one-person joining.

The side-quests do shine light on the less-than-great aspects of Ascian society, but that does not necessarily disqualify it from Utopian status. None of those quests appeared to indicate that there was any form of poverty or sickness, though I'll grant you that they were pretty strict on keeping things like jealousy to a minimum. The unfortunate reality is that a Utopian society is actually never going to exist outside of fiction specifically for the reason demonstrated there: emotion. The only possible way to maintain a Utopian society, assuming the Ascians had the same volatile nature and emotional range of the lesser creatures their destruction spawned, would be to take steps to prevent things such as jealousy and covetousness. Now obviously I'm not saying that's right by our societal standards, but it's important to remember that not every civilization works the same. Our morality is not necessarily their morality. I do not, however, recall any of the quest text saying they would kill you for being creative. As for competition, their competition with other cities was always kept pretty civil from what we've pieced together so far. There was no evidence to my knowledge to indicate that they were using their sentient creations ot fight for them. Indeed, much of the text you can find on the subject asserts that they are very kind and compassionate toward sentient beings they've made. They apparently even had laws dictating how living beings--even created ones--were to be treated within their society. Only non-sentient entities were used for non-verbal conflict resolution.

Not all destructive events in the Source's history have lead to or even contributed to rejoinings. There have been plenty of instances where people went to war on their own terms without any input from the Ascians. Some of these wars even escalated to the point that the land itself was being damaged. There are also at least two instances of Ascian-induced cataclysms being much worse than they were intended specifically because of humanity's propensity for violence.

[kidalutz]

The writing was fine, as far as I see it. Emet-Selch made for a very compelling antagonist and the Ascians, as some of us have been saying for years, had goals that were beyond simple villainy for the sake of villainy. Given how impressive their society and powers happened to be it isn't a huge shock that those remaining would wish to see it restored at any cost. Especially when they're practically immortal and have felt the loss and isolation of outliving every single person they used to know and care for.

Hydaelyn being a Primal makes her a major threat and I hope we end up taking both Hydaelyn and Zodiark down at some point in the future. That way the reins of history are placed firmly in the hands of man rather than dictated by false deities.

I think you inhaled to much of the Ascian philosophy and mixed it with an absolutist point of view without knowing the other sides story.Until thats known your judgment and logic will remain clouded.

[Absimiliard]

I think you inhaled to much of the Ascian philosophy and mixed it with an absolutist point of view without knowing the other sides story.Until thats known your judgment and logic will remain clouded.

Is it clouded, though? This is probably what SE wanted. There is enough moral relativism at play to really get the proverbial wheel turning. Currently extant races just want to survive, the Ascians want to save their own people, and Zodiark and Hydaelyn are basically just two sides of the same coin. We are to Ascians as ants are to us so it's really not hard to understand why they would have such a low opinion of humanity. After all, we don't bat an eyelash when we get rid of an ant colony that's been impeding us in some way.

What we do know is that Hydaelyn was not necessarily right in what she did. Her act of genocide was every bit as vile and savage as the one the Ascians intended to perpetrate to bring back those that sacrificed themselves to save their world. It could potentially be much a much worse act than it currently appears if it turns out that evidence indicating Zodiark's creations to have never been sapient in the first place turns out to be completely accurate.

[Kokomi]

This is probably what SE wanted. There is enough moral relativism at play to really get the proverbial wheel turning. Currently extant races just want to survive, the Ascians want to save their own people, and Zodiark and Hydaelyn are basically just two sides of the same coin.

Moral relativism = there is no universal moral truth, whether something is right or wrong depends only on your culture or time period. I personally think that's a ridiculous stance to take, as some things are clearly, unequivocally wrong.

If only one side can win while the other gets destroyed, no, I don't want both sides to have equally compelling reasons for what they're doing. That's tragedy. I'd prefer it if the heroes were doing the right thing after all. But also that the Ascians and Emet get proper closure.

What we do know is that Hydaelyn was not necessarily right in what she did. Her act of genocide was every bit as vile and savage as the one the Ascians intended to perpetrate to bring back those that sacrificed themselves to save their world.

Agreed that Sundering is genocide if it was done unwillingly. We still don't know what exactly happened back then, though.