The Flaws of Amaurot's society [SPOILER discussion]

[Alenore]

Neither side are right and wrong since different eras has different experiences and values. The important part of all this we learned in Endwalker is that despite everything we may view things as, there will always be flaws we cannot escape from nor ignore.

That is, what I believe, is the lesson of the story in Elpis. No matter how perfect a society and life maybe, there are always flaws that are a part of those things. These flaws may even be instrumental to the creation of society and life. It is why people cannot escape from the hardship in life forever because the more they run from it and ignore it the harder it is to face it and defeat it.

As for Meteion, from my understanding it was not her influence that caused the final days of other worlds with civilizations but their own actions. Consumed by their own despair created by their own actions they all caused their own Final Days which created the Universal Despair that Meteion's sisters became corrupted by. This does bring in the question about how their world may lack a Hero to give them hope to fight the despair they created themselves and if the world of FF14 is the only world that has a Hero to give them hope but that is another topic for another time and post.

I do agree there's flaws, the simple existence of Hermes and Venat who value strongly the individuals more than the collective show it wasn't 100% one sided. But I don't agree that the ones you listed are actual flaws or even exist for some, like the lack of emotion, etc.
As for the Final days, it was implied that she led civilizations to their doom, most likely unconsciously through the bad dynamis. For instance, the Eas mention at least another world where the Final Days happened, and were careful not to tell us how much time we had left.

[Nekaru_Infitima]

Plus I see no reason to not "play god" as some would call it if you have the power of literal creation, creation is as simple as how the ancients treated it, you create something, you observe it and create a conclusion based on that observation, that fear of "hubris" always sounded more like a fear of powerlessness, if hubris does not exist after all, it means you are completely at the mercy of the ones who are more powerful. Come to think of it, it sounds just as silly as many religions who in order to justify the suffering and evil in the world, they tell their people they ll get rewarded in death if they are good xD

When you create a character in a game, a story, or a piece of fictional content. Do they ever seem real to you? Do you ever regret putting them down? Or killing the others? I do. I can't kill NPCs even without wondering how the other NPCs would feel, their friends, family, the planets my character may destroy in RP. Even the villains, and the lives they end. NOW magnify this on a scale to where they actually DO feel those things.

Hermes himself says it, they feel it, they know what's coming. It's the equivalent of going out to murder your dog or your cat right now just because they showed aggression or didn't fit in. And I don't mean rabies which we do, because that' suffering for the animal itself. I mean if it scratched you, would you suddenly want to end its life peacefully?

Why is it different if you create it? These creatures had lives, Hermes saw that. Amaurot didn't care, only the best of the best or those that fit in THEIR view of the chain of life made it.

For example, the flea in our world would not have been around as it served no purpose they could see. In FF you even see this as the monsters you fight in the 98 dungeon, Hyth mentions he won't approve the concept you just fought. They had no regard for their creations unless their creations were up to par.

And even WE here on the forum are just as bad to an extent. All of this talk of "Well Meteion is just a familiar." "Flawed creation."
WE were mistaken as a familiar. Familiars can gain souls as Hermes said, Meteion could feel, she could reason, she was on her way to being a life just like ours. The only differences were her communication and she couldn't eat (because Hermes made it where she couldn't.) But like Hermes said, she would learn in reference to living and communicating. She may never eat, but she was very much the equivalent of us in life.

As were the other familiars. One of the Elpis NPCs goes on to say 'familiars are for a purpose' almost programmed, and then tries to assume yours. So then what of Argos? Supposedly just a familiar programmed for travel. YET you have to prove yourself to him, he has to accept you, he is loyal, these are not manifestations of being programmed to one task.

The reason we were mistaken as a familiar is because familiars is what the unsundered became. And if the unsundered are what were originally familiars with shards of ancient souls, then it shows that YES it was wrong to be destroying them.

[Alenore]

-snip-

Let me change the scale. When you're gardening, do you mind that much about the ants, and every other insects or fauna you're destroying? Especially when you know you could recreate them on a whim if you were wrong? That's pretty much how they see Etheirys, as the Garden of Eden to be molded into perfection, and they test and create and remove the insects and lifeforms that are on it they deem unfit.
Just like us, when we remove plants and animals and insects from our garden.

As for familiars, most are simply made with some purpose. But that's why we make sense as Azem familiar, and Argos being Venat's, an old Azem and who values free will and everything, it's obviously not made as other familiars, like these Elementals that were made to carry messages.

[EdwinLi]

I do agree there's flaws, the simple existence of Hermes and Venat who value strongly the individuals more than the collective show it wasn't 100% one sided. But I don't agree that the ones you listed are actual flaws or even exist for some, like the lack of emotion, etc.
As for the Final days, it was implied that she led civilizations to their doom, most likely unconsciously through the bad dynamis. For instance, the Eas mention at least another world where the Final Days happened, and were careful not to tell us how much time we had left.

I think you need to rewatch the cutscene when Meteion reports her findings again. As she said in that cutscene she arrived to each world finding it already destroyed by different Final Days events. She never caused any of their destruction directly nor indirectly. Each one different but all the same being all life became extinct by a horrible end created from the actions of the civilization that once lived there.

The one planet she manage to find with life even ending their world by war due to deployment of weapons of mass destruction shortly after arriving.

[Rulakir]

I think you need to rewatch the cutscene when Meteion reports her findings again. As she said in that cutscene she arrived to each world finding it already destroyed by different Final Days events. She never caused any of their destruction directly nor indirectly. Each one different but all the same being all life became extinct by a horrible end created from the actions of the civilization that once lived there.

The one planet she manage to find with life even ending their world by war due to deployment of weapons of mass destruction shortly after arriving.

The notes in the last dungeon indicate she did, in fact, contribute to the end of at least two of those worlds. The one that went to war was because one faction deemed themselves superior because extraterrestrial life (Meteion) had visited them first instead of the other faction. The last one she caused to have an existential crisis with her questions.

[Alenore]

snip

That would be the second world we visit in The Dead Ends.

That otherworldly beings should first grace us with their presence is a sign. Indeed, they understand that we─the Global Community─are possessed of the wisdom and compassion needed to guide this star back to the path of righteousness!
Yet the Freedom Fighters dare to undermine us, inviting chaos to disrupt the order we labored so hard to build. They have forgotten the history of this star and its once myriad nations. The wars waged, the countless lives lost...

They must to be brought to heel, the world united under a single standard, no matter the cost.

However, about the Eas.

During the post-Hermes encounter cutscene:

One race had concluded that finite time was the root of all woes. Aspiring to shatter its shackles, they went in search of infinity.
They discovered nothing is infinite, and that neither time or death can be cheated. Disillusioned, they gave up on the future─and themselves.

And then during the explanations ofthe Eas about the end of their world.

We acknowledge, with regret, that your star is in the midst of the same panic-induced cataclysm that befell Deneb III.
As such, in order to avoid causing undue distress, we will refrain from explicitly stating how much time you have remaining.

Apparently, the same Final Days event befell them when they were still "alive". Despair has existed for a long time on Etheirys, but it stopped manifesting blasphemies since Zodiark was summoned.
I can't remember if it's during Venat's cutscene with the other where we expplain everything, or in Radz-at-Han, but someone mentioned that the influence that triggered this cataclysm was coming from outside : we know it to be Meteion.

Ergo, Meteion has met this race, then at some point the Final Days happened, and she was able to recreate them at a point in time after this cataclysm occured. So it must have had happened during her time here. While they were already disillusioned and willing to die, she triggered it at least on this star, which means it could have happened on others.
What if, then, she visited a star not yet decided to die, like Etheirys, but then triggered the Final Days here too? She'd take from that that despair and fear is also prevalent, and it would only increase her despaired world count.

We don't have the full report, not even Hermes has it.

Edit: Oh and if Deneb III is not their world, they at least witnessed it on a world they knew about, and still had living beings.

[EdwinLi]

The notes in the last dungeon indicate she did, in fact, contribute to the end of at least two of those worlds. The one that went to war was because one faction deemed themselves superior because extraterrestrial life (Meteion) had visited them first instead of the other faction. The last one she caused to have an existential crisis with her questions.

That would be the second world we visit in The Dead Ends.


However, about the Eas.

During the post-Hermes encounter cutscene:


And then during the explanations ofthe Eas about the end of their world.


Apparently, the same Final Days event befell them when they were still "alive". Despair has existed for a long time on Etheirys, but it stopped manifesting blasphemies since Zodiark was summoned.
I can't remember if it's during Venat's cutscene with the other where we expplain everything, or in Radz-at-Han, but someone mentioned that the influence that triggered this cataclysm was coming from outside : we know it to be Meteion.

Ergo, Meteion has met this race, then at some point the Final Days happened, and she was able to recreate them at a point in time after this cataclysm occured. So it must have had happened during her time here. While they were already disillusioned and willing to die, she triggered it at least on this star, which means it could have happened on others.
What if, then, she visited a star not yet decided to die, like Etheirys, but then triggered the Final Days here too? She'd take from that that despair and fear is also prevalent, and it would only increase her despaired world count.

We don't have the full report, not even Hermes has it.

Edit: Oh and if Deneb III is not their world, they at least witnessed it on a world they knew about, and still had living beings.

Sorry if my knowledge is lacking currently. I'm slowed down on my MSQ progress mostly because of personal life things and my habbit of completing all side quests before moving on to the next area.

That aside, while yes Meteion did cause the Final days of certain worlds either by accident or intentional it was only a certain amount. A Unknown amount but not the majority from what we learned.

We also lack crucial timeframe about when Meteion's sister started to conclude destorying all life was the only solution during their mission. We also can't be certain if she started destorying worlds intentionally before or after Meteion became corrupted by her sisters.

However, for some unknown reason, I feel this topic maybe covered in Season 2 storyline. I don't know why but the thought about the Warrior of Despair comes to my mind which is a concept SE introduced in a game they closed down a year ago called Final Fantasy Mobius.

While yes Yoshi-p said season 2 story is going to be unrelated to the Zodiark vs Hydaelyn conflict since it ends in 6.0, he also mentioned there is something in 6.0 MSQ that will play a vital role in Season 2 we have to a keep a eye out for.

What that is remains currently unknown since he wants us to guess it but my best guess is Dynamis and the actions Meteion caused by destroying other stars in her corrupt state or a star that had already been destroyed before Meteion's sister arrived maybe involved in some way.

Either way we should be getting a picture of what to expect once we enter 6.1 since that is the beginning of Season 2.

We gotten way off topic anyways so let us end this discussion here for this post.