Revelations from SHADOWBRINGERS

[Alleo]

Whilst it doesn't have too much relevance to many aspects of the discussion, it does apply to one: Sentience and Sapience being where many feel the line is drawn between whether a death is considered murder or not.

Imagine the following situation -
Humans are on the brink of extinction; almost totally wiped out by an unexplained cause, with the death toll that continues to rise drastically daily. In desperation, many of the survivors sacrifice themselves in the hope of saving their remaining friends, family and the species. Men and women sacrifice themselves to secure a future for the next generation. Mothers and fathers sacrifice themselves to enable their children to live as they once did.
As wished, the spread of death eventually stops - but too late. The loss being so great that the population can't be recovered by any other means except one. Unfortunately, this means comes at a cost: the extinction of all of the other Great Apes and countless deaths of various other creatures. But it would not only restore your own family and friends, but all Humans who were lost to those events.

Would you do it?

No I would not simply because I dont believe that the human race has a right to live over those. But that kind of situation would not happen in our world anyway and most huge events are either out of our hands or done by us (which in turn gives us even less right to just kill more to get us back). Also again there is difference between the "circle of life" and outright pure genocide.

And I mean if we argue that then go a bit further. There are quite a few horrible people in our history that saw certain races as lower beings. We could go round and round with this and someone will probably always find a way to justify their reasons.

In the end this divided the race. If it was just plants and some animals I doubt it would have divided the people that much. So for me it makes the most sense that we are talking about sapient beings or at least those with a soul. Otherwise it makes no sense because why would he even exchange their souls for something worth less and how would they ever get enough plants and animals to make up for that loss of souls? These ancient beings were unbelievable powerful. There is nothing in the game that indicates that animals or plants came even near that.

[Scintilla]

No I would not simply because I dont believe that the human race has a right to live over those.

Taking that question by itself, the answer would be a definite and immediate "no, I would not".

I would admire that choice. Though, I couldn't blame those who may disagree, nor would I consider them to be evil people - simply a differing viewpoint built upon our own mechanism of survival.

We kill many animals for meat, despite evidence suggesting varying levels of sentience and our ability to survive on a meat-free diet. True, many of such animals are well-treated beforehand, but it's still a premature death of sentient beings nonetheless.
We indirectly lead to a range of animal deaths through other actions, including habitat destruction, pollution etc.

Emet-Selch doesn't do that. He treats the genocide as a matter of course, and he rushes straight into wiping out every life on the shards ... He holds no regrets and no compunctions, and he gleefully mocks us for it, which is even far beyond the mere apathy that most people have when, say, they eat meat or take antibiotics. Emet-Selch doesn't see killing mortals as murder, but he also doesn't see it as unfortunate either.

Whilst we have an general idea of how events unfolded, we don't yet know the exact time-frame this occurred within. From what we know right now, it would be an assumption to say they rushed straight into it. We've no information on exactly how much time passed between the sundering and the beginning of the Ascian's work. There may have been very little time. Or maybe they waited, perhaps to better understand what actually happened. Maybe spent time amongst the sundered to better learn to what extent it had affected them.


I can see your point here. He doesn't appear to view the deaths caused by rejoinings as unfortunate. Not only this, he's also highly disrespectful towards the inhabitants of the Source and Shards, being very arrogant and condescending towards them.

Also again there is difference between the "circle of life" and outright pure genocide. And I mean if we argue that then go a bit further. There are quite a few horrible people in our history that saw certain races as lower beings. We could go round and round with this and someone will probably always find a way to justify their reasons.

The Ascian's appear to have little to no respect for the sundered beings. But are they looking to cause rejoinings for no other reason than to kill all sundered beings (Genocide)? Or is their motivation the restoration of lives ended by Hydaelyn during the Sundering, with the loss of sundered life being a consequence of that?
It's unforgivable either way (which is why I also question the WoLs choice to change events in ShB to avoid an unfavourable future) but motive can matter.

I don't mean to justify them. On the contrary, as I said in my previous post, I very much disagree with their chosen course of action. It's wrong and the Scions couldn't have let them continue. But I also found myself sympathising with the Ascian's situation and I don't think the WoL have much of a moral high ground.

[MrThinker]

/snip
It's unforgivable either way (which is why I also question the WoLs choice to change events in ShB to avoid an unfavourable future) but motive can matter. /snip

Forgive me if I am misinterpreting you here, but it's not like the WoL is actively advocating genocide to restore their friends. For them, that 8th Calamity was/is a future that hasn't happened yet, and is thus something they would (rightly, I believe) want to avoid. Your statement would work better if it was directed to G'raha and the future Ironworks, who were the actual ones who made the choice to change events.

[Alleo]

The Ascian's appear to have little to no respect for the sundered beings. But are they looking to cause rejoinings for no other reason than to kill all sundered beings (Genocide)? Or is their motivation the restoration of lives ended by Hydaelyn during the Sundering, with the loss of sundered life being a consequence of that?

The problem is that their plan is the same as it was at their time. And before Hydealyn came up and split the souls everyone had a complete soul. So all his talk about us being not alive is bad anyway because they were ready to kill living beings with complete souls too.

In the end no matter what they decided to sacrifice, a bigger part of their surviving people were against it. You see it in the cave image and Hythlo also said it divided their race for the first time. Would that really count if it was only a handful ancients against it and the majority for it? And on top of that the Ascians were tempered to Zodiark.

About the extinction of the race part: Was this ever stated ingame that their race would cease to exist? Because as far as I can remember they just talked about leaving the planet in the hands of the new life. Of course this could hint that their race was at end but for me it may have simply been the argument that the death should stay death and that the new souls born after the calamity will decide on the fate of the planet now. I mean before the calamity the ancients were the only race living there and now after the calamity they for the first time might have had to live next to other races. Thus they might not believe to have the right to "rule" over them. I mean there was enough ancient ones left to divide the race and for one part to summon Hydealyn. Unlike the spoken races now they also got very old. I dont see a reason on why they would not be able to reproduce again and over time get the numbers up again.

Forgive me if I am misinterpreting you here, but it's not like the WoL is actively advocating genocide to restore their friends. For them, that 8th Calamity was/is a future that hasn't happened yet, and is thus something they would (rightly, I believe) want to avoid. Your statement would work better if it was directed to G'raha and the future Ironworks, who were the actual ones who made the choice to change events.

Yes it was not the WoLs decision it was the one from the future. And as we know their world seems to be beyond saving and it was not even the future Ironworks that did this. It was a lot of people still living there who had big respect for the WoL and decided that our life was worth theirs. In a way you could say that their sacrifice was similiar to the ones the ancient did. The ancients sacrificed themselves to give some of their people a chance at a future and the people 200 years in the future sacrificed theirs to give us and in turn many more people a future. (Its made quite clear that the black rose was too destructive to the world and even killed the soil) And we only knew about this bad future when we were already on the first thus change already started.