The State of the Ascians (Assume Spoilers as of TODAY)

[Yuella]

I feel that if we have to fight Hydaelin, it's not because she's evil but because we have to. If we kill Zodiark, we have to kill Hydaelyn as well to keep the balance between light and dark. Hydaelyn herself probably will ask us to kill her.

[ShadowMeowth]

I feel that if we have to fight Hydaelin, it's not because she's evil but because we have to. If we kill Zodiark, we have to kill Hydaelyn as well to keep the balance between light and dark. Hydaelyn herself probably will ask us to kill her.

This is another option I thought based on (again) references. Pray forgive me for my ignorance, FFXI players, but was there not a god in one of the expansions whose problem was he had / wanted to off himself and he could not? Because it could be indeed Hydaelyn's situation in such an scenario.

[JeanneOrnitier]

I feel that if we have to fight Hydaelin, it's not because she's evil but because we have to. If we kill Zodiark, we have to kill Hydaelyn as well to keep the balance between light and dark. Hydaelyn herself probably will ask us to kill her.

This seems a lot more likely to me.

[ObsidianFire]

The most likely scenario I see for Hydaelyn dying is her pulling a move like she did in 2.0 to protect us from Ultima. She'd rather let herself get hurt than see us die. Protecting us from Zodiark doing something that would result in us dying before Zoidark ends? That's right up her alley.

One problem I see is that we don't know a lot about what role Hydaelyn plays in the world order at the moment. It could be that killing her won't effect the world in some way. On the other hand... she is the one who Sundered the World. It could be that her being alive is what is keeping it (and Zoidark) Sundered. And if she died the Sundering would end... Which could be... really bad. We know a Calamity happens on the Source when a Rejoining happens. There's six other Shards and the Void still around; all with people on them. If killing Hydaelyn would make like... six or seven Rejoinings happen all at once, I can see that not being something anyone wants to do.

For everyone saying Hydaelyn is a primal and we should kill her just on principle... It's pointed out by characters in-universe that if Rhamu and Alexander weren't huge drains on the aether in the environment, they'd be fine to leave alone. Rhamu doesn't Temper people without them asking him for it first. Alexander doesn't temper anyone. Heck, we don't even actually kill Alexander; he makes a time-bubble around himself that freezes him in one instant of time so he won't continuously be an aether drain. We have no evidence of Hydaelyn being a drain on the Lifestream (quite the contrary; she's in the Lifestream which is nothing but aether and is so low on energy/aether she can't talk to us anymore). And we have no solid evidence of her Tempering anyone. Or of her meddling in history when Ascians weren't already meddling. Unless our knowledge of either of those facts changes, no one in-game is going to have a good reason to kill her. It would be too much effort for no known benefits (and a lot of unknown ways things could go catastrophically wrong).


There's also the fact that... how do you kill something that isn't even in the physical world? Hydaelyn is in the Lifestream already... which is where the aether of unsummoned Primals hangs out anyway. If we do kill Zodiark, all his aether is going to go straight to the Lifestream. He's just.. not going to be a physical entity in the world most likely? Or maybe calling them a consciousness is better? It's entirely possible that Hydaelyn or Zoidark can't be really killed by design too. The entire reason both of them were summoned to begin with was to be the Will of the Star, and I can see the Ancients wanting to make that Creation really fool-proof when it comes to things like it dying easily. For all we know, they're just a bunch of aether in the Lifestream already and the only way to really "get rid of them" is to do what Hydaelyn did to Zoidark: removing their aether from the Lifestream and locking them up in some prison world.

If anything... I have an easier time seeing Zodiark and Hydaelyn reconciling their difference and them both becoming the the Will of the Star by the end than I see the WoL having to kill Hydaelyn themselves. There's... no internal narrative reason to do so yet and this far into the Hydaelyn/Zoidark conflict, I'd expect to see something much more concrete pointing in that direction than anything we have so far. It's too late in the story to introduce a "surprise! you have to kill the being who has been backing you this entire time because they're bad!" plot and have it work as well as the FFXIV story team likes their ideas working.

[Veloran]

She lends the PC and others power to accomplish goals they have in common

Goals that she effectively forced them to have. And I don't mean in the "she tempered you" way or even the "she hid knowledge from you that may have changed your opinion" way, but rather the "the state of the world and your very being that she is responsible for creating leaves you no choice but to align with her" way.

Her duplicitous context doesn't make a difference

I really feel like it does.

doesn't compel service

Minfillia seemed extremely compelled. As well as Middy. And Ryne and all that on the First, they never had a choice.

has to act through mortals by granting them power and hoping her read on them is right, and doesn't take that power away should her read be wrong.

She does ignore their plight when it suits her though. Urianger had to effectively barge into her room and poke her in the eye to get her to help the First.

namely stopping the Ascians' genocidal / omnicidal plans

I'm just going to say it - Hydaelyn's status quo for the world is infinitely more genocidal than the plans of the Ascians. She is responsible for more death than they could ever dream of causing, every living being that has ever died on any of the shards or the Source can ultimately owe that loss of life to Hydaelyn.

She exists solely to bind Zodiark

This is extremely debatable. Hydaelyn taking up her position in the Lifestream, hearfeelthinking anyone who awakens the Echo regardless or whether they have anything to do with the Ascians or not, bargaining for Midgarsormr to die, give up his aether to her, and eternally enter her service guarding whatever is beneath Silvertear, she does more than only keep watch on Zodiark.

[ShadowMeowth]

Goals that she effectively forced them to have. And I don't mean in the "she tempered you" way or even the "she hid knowledge from you that may have changed your opinion" way, but rather the "the state of the world and your very being that she is responsible for creating leaves you no choice but to align with her" way.


I really feel like it does.


Minfillia seemed extremely compelled. As well as Middy. And Ryne and all that on the First, they never had a choice.


She does ignore their plight when it suits her though. Urianger had to effectively barge into her room and poke her in the eye to get her to help the First.


I'm just going to say it - Hydaelyn's status quo for the world is infinitely more genocidal than the plans of the Ascians. She is responsible for more death than they could ever dream of causing, every living being that has ever died on any of the shards or the Source can ultimately owe that loss of life to Hydaelyn.


This is extremely debatable. Hydaelyn taking up her position in the Lifestream, hearfeelthinking anyone who awakens the Echo regardless or whether they have anything to do with the Ascians or not, bargaining for Midgarsormr to die, give up his aether to her, and eternally enter her service guarding whatever is beneath Silvertear, she does more than only keep watch on Zodiark.

All of this. Thank you.

[Morningstar1337]

I'm just going to say it - Hydaelyn's status quo for the world is infinitely more genocidal than the plans of the Ascians. She is responsible for more death than they could ever dream of causing, every living being that has ever died on any of the shards or the Source can ultimately owe that loss of life to Hydaelyn.

How so? She was summoned after half (or was it 3 quarters?) the population already gave up their lives, and so far her plans seems tobe aimed towards preserving the existing life.

If its because of the Calamities as your post seems to imply, keep in mind that those are on the Ascians, and as such both have a reactionary and vengeful bent to them and are aimed with hindering her in the first place

[Vulcwen]

How so? She was summoned after half (or was it 3 quarters?) the population already gave up their lives, and so far her plans seems tobe aimed towards preserving the existing life.

If its because of the Calamities as your post seems to imply, keep in mind that those are on the Ascians, and as such both have a reactionary and vengeful bent to them ad are aimed with hindering her in the first place

By sundering the star, she made people mortal (at least, that's implied). Therefore anyone that dies to natural causes can be attributed to her actions. And that'd be a lot of lives lost over the last 12000 years. Compared to the Ascians willing to kill everyone once, she'd have killed everyone 120 times over already (and that's just on the source), and would be responsible for many more. From that perspective it's very easy to see the Ascian cause as morally correct, you'd prevent billions of deaths by bringing back the old world so that people will be immortal again.

Introducing mortality in a world of immortals is really freaking evil if it was intentional, and an eternal curse for those that lived to see it happen.

[Morningstar1337]

By sundering the star, she made people mortal (at least, that's implied). Therefore anyone that dies to natural causes can be attributed to her actions. And that'd be a lot of lives lost over the last 12000 years. Compared to the Ascians willing to kill everyone once, she'd have killed everyone 120 times over already (and that's just on the source), and would be responsible for many more. From that perspective it's very easy to see the Ascian cause as morally correct, you'd prevent billions of deaths by bringing back the old world so that people will be immortal again.

Introducing mortality in a world of immortals is really freaking evil if it was intentional, and an eternal curse for those that lived to see it happen.

Kinda makes sense (though still kinda iffy, a genocide is usually considered a mass murder, with intent, and specifically the removal of an ethnicity or its culture from the planet. And the Aumarotines didn't seem like the "can't be killed" type of immortality. A death by natural cause could be blamed on her, but I kinda doubt that was her intention, even as shady as she seems), though it also depends on your view of reincarnation (as in whether or not people are the same as their past lives). and yet I still kinda doubt that it is comparable, especially since their plans require throwing all of mortal life into the pyre. Past, present and (as evidenced by the Exarch's original timeline) future. All of this to bring back a people that is clearly evidenced to be long gone to begin with (think the Ship of Theseus Paradox, Aumarotines born after the Ascians' success would be immortal, capable of godlike creation magic and larger than even highlanders, but they would still be fundamentally different form the people that the Convocation personally knows, and those that they personally knew, etc).

Plus we also don't know if it was intentional we didn't see any confirmation of Venat and co going "for the sake of this star we must shorten all lifespans". Though I now want to know exactly who created the "new life" that Venat's faction fought to safeguard, because chances are likely that they were the ones that coded in mortality and thus who created them is germane.

[ShadowMeowth]

By sundering the star, she made people mortal (at least, that's implied). Therefore anyone that dies to natural causes can be attributed to her actions. And that'd be a lot of lives lost over the last 12000 years. Compared to the Ascians willing to kill everyone once, she'd have killed everyone 120 times over already (and that's just on the source), and would be responsible for many more. From that perspective it's very easy to see the Ascian cause as morally correct, you'd prevent billions of deaths by bringing back the old world so that people will be immortal again.

Introducing mortality in a world of immortals is really freaking evil if it was intentional, and an eternal curse for those that lived to see it happen.

The Ancients were /nigh/ immortal. Emet says they could live "for an age", but I assume accidents and illness and overly old age happened. If people did not die, then Emet would not be seeing the souls traversing the Lifestream. The Ancients revered the Underworld and their relationship with the concept of death was curious. Sometimes they were too quick to surrender their own life force For Science™️ and that makes me suspect it was their souls were not affected by reincarnation and perhaps they were reborn with another name and family but to the Ancients what seems to truly identify each other is the soul. They often refer to others they are not acquainted with as "soul" instead of "man / woman / person".

That being said, though Hydaelyn's power is not to destroy but to enervate, that means what She split in fourteen of the Ancients as well was 1) their lifespan, 2) their endurance to remain as themselves in the currents of the Lifestream. Those two elements combined are what comprised mortality, and even if the Sundering was accidental, it was still Her doing. For the Unsundered, they were now seeing death everywhere, they could not even make friends or form a family with them outliving them all; Emet was probably the most affected by this, as he did try coexistence with mortals.

I think that the mortal races (spoken and beastmen, the Sahagin priest was able to awaken the Echo) are the result of the Sundering and the races might represent a fragment of what defined the Ancients as a race. What I understood from Hythlodaeus' account was that there were animals and plants and the like, and it was their life force that would nurture Zodiark when the star recovered. For them it would be the same as harvesting for us. And they knew it would take time to be safe to do so. Venat and her followers did not give the Convocation the chance to see if the plan worked so we will probably never know.