6.0 Story Speculations

[Veloran]

"in any incarnation we would recognize them" refers to the characters in game.

I'm the one who made that statement, what sense does it make to tell me what it means? My point was that none of the Scions bear any real resemblance to any of the Twelve as they're described in the mythologies. Even Azem has little in common with Azeyma outside of an association with the sun.

This why "The Twelve" are all equal gods with Azem, not Azem with 12 servant.

the cave with the Everlasting Dark and see that there is a circle of individuals preforming a spell or a summon. I'm pretty confident the people shown in that cave painting is Azem with his followers, as it is placed sequentially before the rise of Ronka and Ardbert and friends saving The First.

First you suggest they're equals, then you point to a mural showing one WoL and a bunch of inferior figures and refer to them as Azem's "followers"? That's just contradictory.

Yet they were willing to sacrifice ALL UNSUNDERED souls aside Ascian's so that Zodiark spit back the ascian souls used during his summoning (thats it until a less radical ascian faction summoned Hydaelyn in kind to avoid that mass genocyde).

Their stated intent was to sacrifice a portion of the rejuvenated life after a period of time. It should go without saying that sacrificing everything would completely defeat the point of the sacrifice to restart life to begin with.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Yet they were willing to sacrifice ALL UNSUNDERED souls aside Ascian's so that Zodiark spit back the ascian souls used during his summoning (thats it until a less radical ascian faction summoned Hydaelyn in kind to avoid that mass genocyde). Only after Hydaelyn defeated Zodiark and splitted reality that souls became sundered.

Solus aka Emeth disliked his grandchild Varis, because he reminded him too much of his dead son, to whom is implied Emeth came to love until he died young to a disease.

Emeth didnt expect anything of Varis

Uh except it wasn’t all unsundered souls, don’t spread misinformation it was the eventual rejuvenated life. Secondly, based on what Venat herself says, their problem wasn’t even so much the sacrifices. It was simply that they didn’t see Zodiark as a permanent solution for whatever reason.

[Rannie]

Yo guys... again read Ere Our Curtain Falls... they were divided on what they wanted to do with the new life. They argued whether the freshly minted (Unsundered souls) should be allowed to continue on under the guidance of the rest of the Amaurotines or use them as Sacrificial Lambs to bring back the also Unsundered Amaurotines who willingly gave up their life back. Hydaelyn was summoned to be a stop gap on Zodiark and the powers giving to her upon her summoning was to Enervate him. When Hydaelyn and Zodiark fought it split him and inturn it split the star as well as the lives on the star.

[Anonymoose]

Uh except it wasn’t all unsundered souls, don’t spread misinformation it was the eventual rejuvenated life. Secondly, based on what Venat herself says, their problem wasn’t even so much the sacrifices. It was simply that they didn’t see Zodiark as a permanent solution for whatever reason.

(I'm going to do my best to set aside any assumptions I might make about these claims based on your Ancient cosplay glamour, lol.)

Emet-Selch said his plan was to rejoin all sundered life into the Source and sacrifice it all.

Emet-Selch
Once the rejoining of worlds is complete, Zodiark will regain His full strength and shatter His prison. Then we shall offer up the Source's remaining inhabitants in sacrifice, that we might resurrect our brethren who died to bring Zodiark into existence.

Emet-Selch
Dann werden wir die gesamte Bevölkerung der Ursprungwelt als Opfer darbieten, um unsere Brüder zurückzubringen, die ihr Leben Zodiark schenkten.

Then we will offer the entire population of the original world as sacrifices to bring back our brothers who gave their lives to Zodiark.

Hythlodaeus even vouched for Venat's motivation.

Hythlodaeus
There were, however, those who disagreed with this plan. They argued that enough had been sacrificed to Zodiark─that this new world should belong to the lives newly born. These dissidents surrendered their life energies in the creation of Hydaelyn, an incarnation of their opposing belief.

[Veloran]

Emet-Selch said his plan was to rejoin all sundered life into the Source and sacrifice it all.

This was now, that was then. Again sacrificing all the rejuvenated life in the Ancient world after first sacrificing to restore it would be meaningless, we're specifically told only a portion would be sacrificed. Also unless we assume that the souls of the original sacrifices escaped the Sundering - Which is an unlikely prospect - We would then be led to believe that they exist now as sundered life.

Hythlodaeus even vouched for Venat's motivation.

Sure. But it just happens that the only one who doesn't vouch for Venat's motivations is Venat. When we see the Hydaelyn faction talking about their motivations, the premise is their fear that Zodiark doesn't represent a permanent end to the threat of the Final Days. They say nothing about protecting the rejuvenated life. And frankly, if they had intended Hydaelyn to do what she did and sunder the world, it follows that their priority was the stability of the star itself and not life in particular.

[Mieck]

Emet-Selch said his plan was to rejoin all sundered life into the Source and sacrifice it all.

Those are pretty solid quotes, but Emet does muddy the waters a touch with this line while you're waiting for the Ladder to be fixed.

Remember, you are of the Source. Unlike the halfmen here, you stand only to gain. Should you survive the remaining calamities, you will become our equal. A complete existence in a complete world.

I won't base speculation on that, but it does confuse the picture a little. I'd be interested to know what those lines say in the other languages, to see if it's just a quirk of the English script.

[Bhearil]

Uh except it wasn’t all unsundered souls, don’t spread misinformation it was the eventual rejuvenated life. Secondly, based on what Venat herself says, their problem wasn’t even so much the sacrifices. It was simply that they didn’t see Zodiark as a permanent solution for whatever reason.

Perhaps i didnt explain myself properly my bad:

Its kinda implied that most sentient races like the playable ones and certain races like the Amaljaa existed before the sundering since the same race exist in different shards. Considering that after Zodiark restored the star itself, the life was almost completely extinguished and the ascians were forced again to sacrifice themselves to restore the star's life, it was then when new races came to be, and those are the very races that an ascian faction wanted to use them as fodder for Zodiak to bring back all the previously sacrificed ascians while other though that they deserve a chance to live and got worried how the star became too dependant on Zodiark and summoned Hydaelyn to keep Zodiark in check.

Doesnt mean they were going to exterminate the life of the star, just the new non ascian sapient life, but the moderate ascian faction considered this was a sacrifice too great just for their lost kin to come back plus that they didnt think that Zodiark existence was the solution to everything

[Lauront]

The real problem here is that it's not specified in any case. It could be that there were some material differences between the newly minted and ancient souls, or it could just be the maturity cycles meant it would take very long for their decimated population to recover. As Veloran notes, it is indeed referred to as a portion of this new life.

Either way, Venat herself does not speak ill of them and says they only do as they believe is best for the star. And I think that's the crux of the disagreement - the two groups had conflicting visions on how to best steward the star. Checking Zodiark's might and ceding the future to the 'newer souls' was their view on how to do that. Again the way they don't malign the Convocation suggests to me they're also viewing their proposed actions in the framework of sacrifice for the greater good of the star - they just disagreed that further sacrifices would achieve that. Their concerns therefore also appear to be pragmatic in nature. There may be more to the whole thing but based on what we currently know, that's how I read it.

[Veloran]

certain races like the Amaljaa existed before the sundering since the same race exist in different shards. Considering that after Zodiark restored the star itself, the life was almost completely extinguished and the ascians were forced again to sacrifice themselves to restore the star's life, it was then when new races came to be, and those are the very races that an ascian faction wanted to use

Why would Zodiark create new races when rejuvenating life? Rather than this convolution of Zodiark creating new sapients for the Hydaelyn faction to object to their sacrifice, doesn't it just make more sense that when the world was sundered and Hydaelyn had to rebuild, she created the new forms of life across the shards all at once? She does claim to be humanity's (et al) creator and mother, after all.

Not to mention, Hydaelyn's entire thing is division. Doesn't it follow that in the same way she divided the souls of the Ancients across the reflections, she divided the Ancients as a people into various separate races? A Tower of Babel situation, if you will.

[YianKutku]

Either way, Venat herself does not speak ill of them and says they only do as they believe is best for the star. And I think that's the crux of the disagreement - the two groups had conflicting visions on how to best steward the star. Checking Zodiark's might and ceding the future to the 'newer souls' was their view on how to do that. Again the way they don't malign the Convocation suggests to me they're also viewing their proposed actions in the framework of sacrifice for the greater good of the star - they just disagreed that further sacrifices would achieve that. Their concerns therefore also appear to be pragmatic in nature. There may be more to the whole thing but based on what we currently know, that's how I read it.

Given Elidibus himself was confused on what the Convocation actually wanted, and he obviously did not receive any influence from Venat's group, I think this is more a case of everyone disagreeing with each other, and they happened to coalesce into two vague groups that continued to squabble among themselves. Maybe they started as being all polite and Amaurotine about it at first, but seeing how the Ascians we see in the present day apparently loathe each other, obviously it didn't last.

One of the major issues is that Emet-Selch is the only source of information on what the people of the Ancient world actually wanted, and we know how biased he is, as well as prone to leaving out rather important bits of information to serve his own purposes. Lahabrea had gone crazy (with considering Zodiark as the One True God), and Elidibus was senile. The other Ascians had been subordinate to the Unsundered (primarily the aforementioned Crazy Lahabrea), and once all the Unsundered were dead, the one example we see of Fandaniel decided to Kill Everything, ignoring the whole Rejoining business. At this point, it does seem like literally only Emet-Selch was on-board with the original plan of "Rejoin then sacrifice".