fate of emperor varis at the end

[Nalien]

A better analogy would be if the Manhattan Project gave people super powers, as is usually the case in comic books. It was a project developed to create a war winning bomb and that's about it, the super powers would be an unexpected side effect that may or may not be known about. Heck, in comics when people do know about it, their "I'll recreate the radiation that gave <superhero> their powers!" usually doesn't even end well...

It's the same with the Resonant. It was a project solely about creating an artificial Echo, in order to give Garlean soldiers an edge versus Primals. That was the full scope of the experiment. Immortality is an unexpected side effect that practically nobody knows about.

It's less about incompetence and more just about how unethical Garlemald "science" is. We'd come up with a theory and hypothesis, and we'd slowly test it over and over. Garlemald just comes up with an idea and runs with it; "Will you gain the Echo if we siphon a bunch of Echo users aether into you? Lets do it and see what happens!" It's a very uncontrolled methodology, which I guess you can still call incompetence, but at the same time even the most controlled experiments can yield unexpected results. Had Aulus more time to share his findings, they'd likely have been able to refine the process, but the immortality thing? Only way to even notice that is if your surviving test subjects die, it really isn't an obvious side effect. If Echo = immortality was common knowledge, then sure, one could assume Resonant would function the same, but that's not even the case. The Sahagin Elder was the only instance we've seen of Echo = immortality, meanwhile plenty of other Echo users have seemingly died. Pretty sure Gaius even had a bunch killed at the Waking Sands, and none of them miraculously came back... So why would anyone think such an experiment would grant immortality?

[Edax]

A better analogy would be if the Manhattan Project gave people super powers, as is usually the case in comic books. It was a project developed to create a war winning bomb and that's about it, the super powers would be an unexpected side effect that may or may not be known about. Heck, in comics when people do know about it, their "I'll recreate the radiation that gave <superhero> their powers!" usually doesn't even end well...

It's the same with the Resonant. It was a project solely about creating an artificial Echo, in order to give Garlean soldiers an edge versus Primals. That was the full scope of the experiment. Immortality is an unexpected side effect that practically nobody knows about.

It's less about incompetence and more just about how unethical Garlemald "science" is. We'd come up with a theory and hypothesis, and we'd slowly test it over and over. Garlemald just comes up with an idea and runs with it; "Will you gain the Echo if we siphon a bunch of Echo users aether into you? Lets do it and see what happens!" It's a very uncontrolled methodology, which I guess you can still call incompetence, but at the same time even the most controlled experiments can yield unexpected results. Had Aulus more time to share his findings, they'd likely have been able to refine the process, but the immortality thing? Only way to even notice that is if your surviving test subjects die, it really isn't an obvious side effect. If Echo = immortality was common knowledge, then sure, one could assume Resonant would function the same, but that's not even the case. The Sahagin Elder was the only instance we've seen of Echo = immortality, meanwhile plenty of other Echo users have seemingly died. Pretty sure Gaius even had a bunch killed at the Waking Sands, and none of them miraculously came back... So why would anyone think such an experiment would grant immortality?

And conveniently one guy just happened to create the ultimate weapon on accident and never shared his research? This sounds a lot like Captain America.

[Iscah]

From memory, it's brought up multiple times that Zenos is funding the sort of "mad science" projects that nobody else wants to go near. It's mentioned in the RDM quests as well.

So quite possibly either nobody else is paying attention, or it's all secretive and he's not sharing those discoveries with the rest of Garlemald.

[Nalien]

Based on our fight with him, I imagine Aulus was more than happy to share his findings (he literally says "I will have to share these findings!"). Whether anyone in Garlemald would take him seriously though? Very much doubt it. He only got the OK for Project Resonant because Zenos is crazy, and the whole thing could easily be deemed a failure if you just look at the data. It was meant to be a means to give Garlemald an effective force of Echo users to combat Primals. The incredibly low success rate of participants already marks that as a failure. Even if you claim it made Zenos, does anyone in Garlemald want another Zenos? Somehow I doubt that... "I helped make that insane super soldier!", yeah somehow I doubt that's going to sell well... If you remove the whole controlling Primals and immortality aspect (which Aulus died before, so could never know to share that data), the project really didn't achieve anything, so why would anyone attempt to recreate it?

[Edax]

so why would anyone attempt to recreate it?

Because it worked and has greater potential than an atom bomb. Immortality. Invincibility. The power to manipulate Aether, the very thing that has confounded the Imperials. If one man could get a 1% success rate, then of course they'd want every piece of data to continue the research. The success with Fordola alone would warrant this becoming a national priority.

[Nalien]

We're just going in circles at this point... As I said, nobody knows Project Resonant gave Zenos immortality... We'd shut the project down long before any of this even remotely came to light...

The only data Aulus could possibly have sent off to Garlemald is essentially worthless and completely worth ignoring. The whole point of the project was to have Echo soldiers to combat Primals. When only 1 in 100 survive the procedure though? Why bother? Send those 100 off to fight a Primal, more will probably come back alive and untempered than the single soldier you might get out of Project Resonant.

I think it was also implied by Varis that Zenos was the result of multiple experiments, so we can't even definitively say Project Resonant is what gave him immortality. It could be one of the other experiments, it could be a combination of them, heck it could be that his family tree happens to contain an immortal Ascian in it... As I said, we don't even know that the Resonant is what granted him immortality, that's currently just an assumption. An irrelevant point for this topic though, because as I said, nobody even knows Zenos is immortal now, nobody except Varis, Gaius, Estinien and Elidibus, at least, and they literally only just found out (everyone else in Garlemald didn't even think Zenos was dead...). So with regards to the "Maybe Varis Resonant'd himself to be immortal" idea? That's a big nope. All he knew of Project Resonant before he was cut down, was that it killed almost all its participants. He had no idea it granted immortality or anything of the sort. Why on earth would he go ahead and do it to himself with that in mind?

[Sathona]

The Empire pretty much hates Zenos as it is. It would take a miracle for him to convince the other high ranking officers - let alone the politicians - that he didn't murder his own father in cold blood. I doubt he'd try anyway. He's too much of a nutter to care about maintaining appearances. If anything, he'd probably go on a bloody rampage through the Empire if they even considered trying to stop him.

Nobody needs to be convinced if they are dead~

[Edax]

The only data Aulus could possibly have sent off to Garlemald is essentially worthless and completely worth ignoring. The whole point of the project was to have Echo soldiers to combat Primals. When only 1 in 100 survive the procedure though? Why bother? Send those 100 off to fight a Primal, more will probably come back alive and untempered than the single soldier you might get out of Project Resonant.

A single soldiers that would be invincible in combat is worth more than 100 conscripts. On top of that, they have cloning technology. This would absolutely be technology worth looking into. The project was bigger than one man, word would have gotten out.

[Nalien]

A single soldiers that would be invincible in combat is worth more than 100 conscripts.

Echo =/= invincible, and as far as anyone knew, that's all Project Resonant did, give people an artificial Echo. The whole point of the Project was to create Echo soldiers to fight Primals without fear of Tempering, not to make invincible soldiers, or to pursue immortality. It was solely about reducing casualty numbers versus Primals. When making a single Resonant has a higher body count than just throwing bodies at a Primal though, why bother? It was a failed project, one entirely unexpected and unknown result in Zenos immortality doesn't change that.

On top of that, they have cloning technology.

Cloning technology that is seemingly imperfect at the moment. The clones have no soul or artificial soul, they're just husks. Given the Echo is very much soul based, one imagines their current clones would be completely useless for Project Resonant. You cannot imbue a clones soul with the Echo if that clone has no soul. Remains to see whether the Empires cloning project progresses beyond its current point at all.

This would absolutely be technology worth looking into. The project was bigger than one man, word would have gotten out.

This is going to be the last time I bother repeating myself with this because this is getting absurd; Nobody knows Project Resonant made Zenos immortal... Christ, it was even a surprise to Zenos in the cutscene we first got a hint that he survived... How can word possibly get out when nobody had any idea what even happened? It's a recent development, long after the entire project was completely shut down by the Eorzean Alliance. On the Garlean side at least, there is nobody left to piece together Zenos' immortality with Project Resonant, and thus continue the research... Nobody on the Garlean side even thought Zenos was dead since Elidibus took to puppeting him immediately...

Could word get out now? Sure, though I don't think anyone who now knows would be incline to spread that information. Varis is probably dead. Gaius probably doesn't want to help effectively make more Ascians. Estinien will tell the Scions, we'll have Lyse and Cid speed up investigating the remains of Project Resonant, but we sure as hell wont be reviving the damn thing, we'll just want to understand the science behind it so we can formulate a means to actually kill Zenos this time. Could word still get out via a spy or something similar? Perhaps, but again, for the purpose of this topic that is completely irrelevant... Unless the spy has access to Exarch level time travel, I don't see how such information about Project Resonant now coming to light can be used to help Varis survive... There is just no way that, in the seconds between learning that Zenos is still alive, and being cut down by Zenos, Varis managed to continue research into the Resonant, iron out the ridiculously high casualty rate, and do it to himself to become immortal to survive...

[Cilia]

Some key points that need to be clarified:

1. Aulus' project that eventually developed Resonance was not intended to from the outset. Its original purpose was to give the Garleans the means to manipulate aether, as they are "naturally superior in almost every aspect" other than their general inability to wield magicks. Aulus decided to go against the grain and remedy that congenital defect instead of supplementing their hardier constitutions with magitek to close the gap between Garleans and the other spoken races, but was laughed out of the Imperial court when he proposed the idea. Zenos took him on, however, due to his appreciation for the ability to wield aether (developed in his short story, "The Hunt Begins," in the Chronicles of Light book). How that morphed into replicating the Echo... well, I dunno. (But I suspect Ascian involvement.)

2. Resonance (and the Echo) do not make one invincible or, strictly speaking, immortal. While Fordola does display heightened combat abilities (that do have an exploitable weakness) and Zenos was able to persist beyond death, there are still limitations to it. Specifically the immortality clause requires a vessel, and it's currently unknown if those with Resonance are capable of possessing living beings as the Ascian Overlords do or if they are limited to corpses as the Black Masked underlings are. If it's the latter, it's simply a matter of killing their vessel and making sure the surrounding area is clear of corpses - something far from impossible, as it's done in the SMN 60 quest. Other than that the same methods used to kill Ascian Overlords would, in theory, work just as well (even if they are not limited to using corpses as vessels).

3. Absolutely everyone is surprised that Zenos' Resonance allowed him to persist beyond death - even Elidibus, one of if not the most ancient and knowledgeable character in the setting.

4. As mentioned in 1 above, the Empire typically employs more practical solutions, and the Resonance procedure is pretty impractical. It requires draining aether from a great number of people (roughly 100, if I recall correctly) and an Echo user's aetherial wavelength to copy. Even if the greater Empire had the technology to repeat the procedure, there are no known Echo users in Imperial territory (hardly surprising - the Echo is a gift from Hydaelyn meant to help keep the world safe from the Ascians' machinations, and the Empire is one of their many tools...), so it's unlikely if not impossible to replicate the Resonance procedure with the knowledge at hand.

5. It seems unlikely that the greater Empire was aware of the experiments Zenos was performing, given how many horrible things are found in Castrum Abania. From the cybernetic-magitek monstrosity they turned Grynewaht into to Inferno potentially being an experimented-on Garlean child... yeah, there doesn't seem to have been much government oversight of Zenos' experiments. (Or if there was, they have no moral objections to what he was doing.)