Quote Originally Posted by Iscah View Post
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.

Quote Originally Posted by Cilia View Post
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.