Could there be a relatively peaceful solution to the shard problem?

[Iscah]

As for history and cultures, those could still be preserved through historical records and such, just as lost cultures are (sometimes) preserved under ordinary circumstances.

What historical records? If you're proposing to shut down the entire world, there'll be nobody left to keep records. Or read them.

[Rosenstrauch]

What historical records? If you're proposing to shut down the entire world, there'll be nobody left to keep records. Or read them.

To play Devil's Advocate: Maybe the people of those worlds could summon a primal akin to the Superman villain Brainiac, a living machine whose modus operandi is typically to record all information a planet has to offer while also systematically destroying it. The end goal being to be the only thing left in existence, presumably with perfect knowledge of what the universe was like.


Final Fantasy even has a villain pair like that already in FFIV: The After Years' primary antagonists: The Creator and his cohorts, the Maenads.


FF4: TAY Spoilers, natch:

The former utilizes that game's crystals to keep records of the histories and evolution of entire worlds, then has those crystals retrieved and drops his planet-eating space station, the True Moon, onto them to wipe out worlds he deems unworthy of continued growth, out of an irrational fear that if left unchecked, the people living on those worlds will repeat the tragedy that wiped out his own race and consumed his own world.

The latter are, well, his minions. They are basically superhuman Rydia clones, right down to being able to summon Eidolons, albeit only by stealing their souls and brainwashing them, as the Eidolons would never obey her commands otherwise.

The After Years isn't exactly the best written game in the series, and a lot of its troubled writing comes down to copying whole events and plot elements as fanservice to the original FFIV. But conceptually, I like the idea of both villains and think something like them could work in FFXIV.

Though to be frank, the fact that all of the above are not just antagonists, but outright villains, says a lot about the lens through which "record history, then destroy the source" is viewed as a concept.


There's also a ton of issues involved with summoning a primal, such as the rampant consumption of aether, tempering and the sycophantic behavior of tempered thralls, and having a God complex by virtue of literally being Gods, man-made or otherwise. Oh, and we'd also have to find a way to get the information to the Source, 'cause if it's still on the relevant reflection to be rejoined, it'd like as not be wiped out along with that shard. And we'd also need some means of retrieving that information from whatever it's contained in—to say nothing of having a means of containing it in the first place. And we'd still have to find a way to make a rejoining happen without causing/amplifying a calamity on the Source, which is seemingly impossible and at the very least improbable.


So... probably not feasible in the slightest. And also still pretty horrifying in terms of how many people would have to die. There's really no such thing as a humane way to drive an entire world's population into extinction.

[Cilia]

I think the original proposition involved a gradual tapering-off. No new life would be born on the worlds, and all existing life would live out their existence until natural death. No one would be asked to give up their life - just their potential for children. As for history and cultures, those could still be preserved through historical records and such, just as lost cultures are (sometimes) preserved under ordinary circumstances.

All this, of course, would STILL be a very hard sell. Which is why I remarked a while back that if we had the potential for this, we'd basically be living in a utopian society already.

Still, after seeing what the ancients used to have, I think it's quite likely that there would be more than a few pepole pushing for this if it could be done gently. (And a few, like Varis, who would push for it regardless...)

The issue with a slow burnout of life is that it's absolutely horrible. It's even less humane than just blowing the place up. If you stop all new life from coming into existence, that will quickly kill off livestock, who if not slaughtered for meat have a shorter lifespan than people (spoken races) anyway. Plant life will gradually die out as well. Eventually people will have nothing to eat; this "gentle Rejoining" does nothing but doom people to death via starvation in a few years.

Without a logistical solution to transporting any record of the shard worlds, making them is pointless.

The only people who would push for Rejoinings, gradual or otherwise, are those who believe they would personally benefit from them - as Alisae suggests Varis only thinks Rejoinings are acceptable because he believes that he'll be the one at the top in the very end (and implicitly that Garlemald will make it out relatively unscathed). Unless there were a crisis of untold proportions necessitating the shards give up their existence and they were doomed beyond a shadow of a doubt anyway, absolutely nobody would agree to this.

Except for the literal end of the world nothing justifies genocide, much less omnicide. (inb4 "Hydaelyn genocided the Ancients!": yes, and it was wrong of her, but it's unclear whether that was deliberate on her part and it still doesn't justify the Ascians deliberately trying to omnicide / genocide the shard worlds and Source, respectively.)

[Morningstar1337]

The only people who would push for Rejoinings, gradual or otherwise, are those who believe they would personally benefit from them - as Alisae suggests Varis only thinks Rejoinings are acceptable because he believes that he'll be the one at the top in the very end (and implicitly that Garlemald will make it out relatively unscathed).

And considering what the original inhabitants would be like, I'd imagine that many if not all of those that would hawk for rejoinings would be megalomaniacs, the kind of people seeking godhood and ego-stroking. the Kefkas, the Sephiroths and the Valthreys alike.

[LineageRazor]

What historical records? If you're proposing to shut down the entire world, there'll be nobody left to keep records. Or read them.

If we're arranging this thing in a cooperative manner, then that means that we're in communication with the other worlds. Records can be kept on the Source.

The issue with a slow burnout of life is that it's absolutely horrible. It's even less humane than just blowing the place up. If you stop all new life from coming into existence, that will quickly kill off livestock, who if not slaughtered for meat have a shorter lifespan than people (spoken races) anyway. Plant life will gradually die out as well. Eventually people will have nothing to eat; this "gentle Rejoining" does nothing but doom people to death via starvation in a few years.

Without a logistical solution to transporting any record of the shard worlds, making them is pointless.

These are all problems that are already solved if we even have the means to arrange anything we'd call a "gentle Rejoining" in the first place. For it to even be feasible, we already need to be able to communicate with the other worlds, and likely also have physical transportation to them, as well.

Remember, the goal here is GENTLE. If horrific starvation is part of the outcome - if horrific ANYTHING is part of the outcome - then we've already failed the "gentle" part. Remember, the whole point of this mental exercise is to find a way that's NOT HORRIBLE. If we just find a way that's as bad as what the Asicans would do, but a different sort of bad, then that entirely misses the point! That means no suffering, mass voluntary acceptance. Some melancholy is okay, I suppose. Do I think such a solution is realistic or possible? Probably not - as I said, for folks to be on board with this, they'd already need to be a utopia on par with that of the Ancients. And if we already have that, then what's the point of returning to that state?

Remember, too, that the goal is to find a way to make this work, and the "extinction by childlessness" plan was only the first idea put forth. If it's not acceptable, what would be? Any solution you like; the sky's the limit. How about mass relocation of every worlds' population to the Source? Let them live natural lives, and their souls return to the Source's Lifestream when they die. Not enough room on the Source for everyone all at once? Do one world at a time. And that's simply another potential idea - if it fails for whatever reason, find another.

The only people who would push for Rejoinings, gradual or otherwise, are those who believe they would personally benefit from them - as Alisae suggests Varis only thinks Rejoinings are acceptable because he believes that he'll be the one at the top in the very end (and implicitly that Garlemald will make it out relatively unscathed). Unless there were a crisis of untold proportions necessitating the shards give up their existence and they were doomed beyond a shadow of a doubt anyway, absolutely nobody would agree to this.

Except for the literal end of the world nothing justifies genocide, much less omnicide. (inb4 "Hydaelyn genocided the Ancients!": yes, and it was wrong of her, but it's unclear whether that was deliberate on her part and it still doesn't justify the Ascians deliberately trying to omnicide / genocide the shard worlds and Source, respectively.)

It's only genocide if you're doing it to someone else. If they're doing it voluntarily, it becomes more like mass self-sacrifice - much like the Ancients did. Of course, even THEY only agreed to it because they were looking at a literal end-of-the-world scenario anyway, just as you describe. The difference between them and the current peoples? If we were looking at the literal end of everything, doomed if you don't, doomed if you do (but maybe will save some other people you've never met) - you'd STILL have a lot of trouble getting the doomed people to agree to die.

That's why for the pitch to have any hope at all, it can't be asking for personal death. Asking someone to die for your cause? Hard no. Asking someone to not have children for your cause? There's room for negotiation, there. Heck, some people voluntarily go childless WITHOUT any such lofty cause motivating it. As for the demise of your civilization - your average man-on-the-street probably cares about where his next meal is coming a lot more than he does the proud tradition of the Royal Family or whatever other legacy his nation clings to. It would be the leaders and the intellectuals who would be concerned about that aspect, and they're a relatively low portion of the population. Keep the bread and circuses going, and your job is half done.

As for the leaders and intellectuals - you mentioned that the only folks who would push for this are the ones who believe they would personally benefit (e.g. Varis and his Empire). That's not really true; the whole reason we're having this discussion is the original poster thinks folks would be better off living in an immortal utopia than in the cycle of continuous suffering we currently call mortal life. That's one person, right off the bat, and you can bet there would be others. These kind of ideals are things that intellectuals can latch onto. They see suffering in the world, and look for solutions, both short-term and long-term. These are the kind of people who can rationalize that the future is more than just the continuation of their own society, that their future IS this idyllic melded world. Their "children" then become the people born into this new paradise.

[Cilia]

You're either murdering an entire world's worth of people, helping / allowing them to commit suicide, or sterilizing them (willfully or otherwise). Trying to slice it any other way is mere sophistry.

If it were possible to send records across dimensions, the most humane way to deal with the "issue" is to find a way to Rejoin shards without causing Calamities on the Source. Find that and make it quick. Send the records over, then blow up the shard in an instant. Anything else is going to cause long-term problems and suffering. Sterilize the shard? Even if you limit it to the spoken races (thus allowing them to live out their natural lifespans), you're still forcing them to suffer in despair as they watch their people die out (and when they become geriatric, who's going to care for them?). Teleport them to the Source? Aside from the problem of being an entire world's worth of refugees (when even Eorzea's wealthiest city-state can't or won't support another's worth of refugees), knowing you can't go home again is going to take a severe psychological toll on many.

There is no real way to be humane about it and have consent. Realistically you are never going to get unanimous agreement to the extermination (one way or another) of an entire world's population and the annihilation of the world itself.

Could people be convinced to go along with this? Of course they could, but to sell it as anything less than extinction and annihilation is sophistry.

Now, on to the last bit - while Amaurotine civilization at least appears better than what exists now, it wasn't perfect; chiefly its people seemed given to indolence, given their inaction in saving the volcano island Azem impetuously went to help, as well as the fact they did nothing about the Final Days but research until the crisis personally affected them. A longer lifespan means you're more given to putting things off. Further, while the Ancients were longer lived, it's highly doubtful they were outright immortal; the unsundered Ascians simply extended their lifespans far beyond what would normally be permissible via the power of the Echo. The days of the "paradise" of Amaurot are gone, and will never return no matter what people do. (Key point: Amaurot was the capital of Utopia in Thomas More's eponymous book; "utopia" literally translates to "nowhere.")

Besides which, a case for mortality can be made - it's what pushes people to do great and terrible things, but it also drives people to accomplish the impossible. Case and point: Bad Future Ironworks, who accomplished in ~100 years what the Ascians could not in over 12,000. Living life to the fullest requires having your time be limited, and the "peaceful cooperation" touted by Emet-Selch's phantoms doesn't actually appeal to everyone (some people find satisfaction only in competition; is this morally incorrect, as Amaurotine society would paint it being?).

Mortality - knowing our time is limited - is what gives our lives meaning; and no matter how "perfect" a society may seem to be, how "perfect" a society's members may believe it to be, it's not.

But, you want a way to both humanely exterminate a world's worth of people and have them all consent to it? Not possible. (Or at least so implausible it may as well be impossible.)

[Morningstar1337]

Honestly if communication was possible between worlds, then it is very likely then travel would be as well. Under that premise then it might just be a matter of migrating everyone from one world to the Source and find a way to siphon off that aether from that shard.

But with that said there are still issues considering that it would entail displacing an entire world's population, a migrant crisis that might make RL ones look like child's play and then there's the possibly that any attempt at rejoining a land, depopulated or otherwise, would still be a disaster worthy of the title of calamity, and thus merely lowering the risk and means of dying form "guaranteed cessation of existence" to "snowball's chance in the seven hells that most of the now doubled population survives".

Oh and going with the disembodied soul form of travel like the Scions did has further complications (namely that their life still depends on their body on the Source still be alive) and is more a unexpected astral projection if anything. Ardbert and his group' takes on it required suicide so that falls under the issues inherent with the original proposed solution of the exercise and also the issue of Self-sacrifice that no one would agree too unless their world was doomed anyway (the exact scenario that is the reason Ardbert, Lamitt, Raena-Rae, Nylebert and Branden made their sacrifice and also the one that apparently necessitated Zodiark's conception).

[YianKutku]

It's only genocide if you're doing it to someone else. If they're doing it voluntarily, it becomes more like mass self-sacrifice - much like the Ancients did. Of course, even THEY only agreed to it because they were looking at a literal end-of-the-world scenario anyway, just as you describe. The difference between them and the current peoples? If we were looking at the literal end of everything, doomed if you don't, doomed if you do (but maybe will save some other people you've never met) - you'd STILL have a lot of trouble getting the doomed people to agree to die.

That's why for the pitch to have any hope at all, it can't be asking for personal death. Asking someone to die for your cause? Hard no. Asking someone to not have children for your cause? There's room for negotiation, there. Heck, some people voluntarily go childless WITHOUT any such lofty cause motivating it. As for the demise of your civilization - your average man-on-the-street probably cares about where his next meal is coming a lot more than he does the proud tradition of the Royal Family or whatever other legacy his nation clings to. It would be the leaders and the intellectuals who would be concerned about that aspect, and they're a relatively low portion of the population. Keep the bread and circuses going, and your job is half done.

As for the leaders and intellectuals - you mentioned that the only folks who would push for this are the ones who believe they would personally benefit (e.g. Varis and his Empire). That's not really true; the whole reason we're having this discussion is the original poster thinks folks would be better off living in an immortal utopia than in the cycle of continuous suffering we currently call mortal life. That's one person, right off the bat, and you can bet there would be others. These kind of ideals are things that intellectuals can latch onto. They see suffering in the world, and look for solutions, both short-term and long-term. These are the kind of people who can rationalize that the future is more than just the continuation of their own society, that their future IS this idyllic melded world. Their "children" then become the people born into this new paradise.

I think it should be remembered that Rejoining all the shards into the Source is part of the Ascians' plans, but not the entire plan.

Let's say, through whatever means, the shards are "gently and peacefully" Rejoined to the Source. Everyone is Unsundered (let's also assume the Thirteenth is saved, since why not). Peace reigns over the entire world.

This will last exactly as long as it takes for the Ascians to sacrifice everyone not including them to Zodiark, so they can get their former Amaurotine friends back.

The Ascians don't want a simple return to something resembling the World That Was. They want a complete reset button, at the cost of everyone who lived after the point they want to reset to. So the historical records and civilizations of all the shards that are gently rejoined to the Source will end up as mere curiosities buried deep in an Akademia somewhere, completely irrelevant to anyone, since the only people around would be Amaurotines (and contemporary Ancients) who weren't even around for them, since they had been sacrificed to Zodiark before any of it came about.

There will be no children born into this new paradise from anyone currently on the Source or the shards. Only the previously sacrificed Ancients and presumably their children will benefit.

(I assume this works with the "everyone is a Sundered Ancient soul" lore in that being sacrificed to Zodiark doesn't consume your soul as such. Somehow.)

[LineageRazor]

I think it should be remembered that Rejoining all the shards into the Source is part of the Ascians' plans, but not the entire plan.

Let's be clear here, that it is NOT the goal here to fulfill the Ascians' plan. You're right, what we're talking about here is only part of THEIR plan. The rest of the plan was to get the actual, original Ancients back again. We don't care about that part. The goal is to elevate the races of the world to the former immortal, godlike state the Ancients enjoyed, and hopefully also form a society that is similarly peaceful (that peace most likely made possible because their godlike abilities allowed them to live in a post-scarcity capacity).

Resurrecting the lost Ancients is something the Ascians want, but is not part of the goal of this "gentle Rejoining". We can totally discount that as a reason this plan coudn't work. There are many other reasons this plan couldn't work, but that's not one of them!

As for Cilia's last post, pretty much every point made I've already addressed in a previous post, so any response would just be repetiiton of stuff I've already written. No point in going round and round!

[Cilia]

No, no, it is a valid point.

Thing is, getting back to the "nigh-immortal, nigh-omnipotent" level of the Ancients would require more than just completing the Rejoining. All that would accomplish is getting soul densities back to the level they were pre-Sundering. It would not grant the power of the Ancients; that power is endemic to the Ancient race. All you'd do is get the races you have in the here and now with pre-Sundering soul density (with Echo users able to call upon the power of their Ancient incarnation, as now).

The people of the First aren't magnitudes weaker or shorter-lived than we Source dwellers. "Just" Rejoining the Shards would not be enough to return the world to the pre-Sundering "paradise" or give the peoples of that melded world the power and longevity of the Ancients.