*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[Vexander]

That is actually an interesting hypothesis, could you elaborate?

From memory in order to achieve a rejoining a certain energy needs to be so out of balance it consumes the entire shard, so I would assume since the void took over the thirteenth the rejoining of the thirteenth to the source would have been complete including souls and all.

But I do remember Emet saying they screwed up the thirteenth by rushing, though we werent given full details as to what that meant, do we know more about it?

I feel that would be a giant plot hole is true because it would make no sense for the Ascians to keep trying to rejoin all the shards if the final goal wouldnt be possible due to the mess that was the thirteenth, were they thinking of uniting all the shards and then somehow fixing the issue with the thirteenth and then rejoining it with the source?

It is indeed a plot hole. In Shadowbringers, Emet-Selch outright states the Ascians don't want the First to fall to Light either, because then it can never be rejoined to the Source. I believe between the Crystal Tower, Void Ark/Mhach, and also the Ivalice raids, we learned that the denizens of the Thirteenth, when it fell to Void, were all transformed into aether-starved/aether-consuming entities that cannot die, but simply reform in the Void after being destroyed. So, those fragments of souls could never return to the Aetherial Sea, and thus, no matter if the Ascians rejoined the remaining twelve Shards to the Source, they could never perfectly recreate the old Etheirys. The density of the souls of the people would not be the same.

I think an interesting hypothesis/question that one might have there is, could Hydaelyn have allowed the Thirteenth to fall to Void for that very reason? Would a soul that is 13/14ths whole still be susceptible to Dynamis?

[NanaWiloh]

And yet, Aether is supposed to be much more powerful than Dynamis. Had they known Meteion existed, Dynamis being comparatively weak against Aether, they could have blasted her to oblivion. We literally managed to travel to the end of the universe, so I can't believe they couldn't have, given the time, and the much more bountiful aether they had compared to us.

Venat, in the end, chose the Sundering in part because we'd need to interact with Dynamis yes, but also to avoid the shortcomings of their brethrens wanting to just shield themselves in their bubble and hide and live their perfect lives again.

It took Hydelan/Venat eons to gather up the aether that allowed us to travel there. She was doing it smack in the aetherial sea no less. If took her that long there is no question that her people would have spent far longer trying to accomplish the same goal.

[NanaWiloh]

Not to mention there were actually two scenes during our time in Elpis that addresses this. The first was when Emet-Selch says that he is confiscating Meteion in the name of the Convocation for study and because it was too dangerous to be left alone once he realizes what it's capable of doing. This heavily implies that no one knew what this thing was exactly and had never seen anything like it before. It wasn't a familiar. It was something different. An "entelechy" which no one but Hermes knew anything about. In fact, during your investigation with Venat, you discover that he did all this in private. He never sought approval for his concept or his experiments.

Second - and this is the biggest thing - the memory wipe. Now, if you want to argue that was a contrivance to move the plot forward, I won't argue that. But it did at least explain why no counter was created, because per Hermes' instructions, they all believed Meteion was destroyed. All but Venat. And we know why she didn't create a counter. She had her own plan, controversial as it may have been.

But this is the kind of stuff I talk about when I say some people just completely missed the point or even missed crucial plot points.

Hermes was a desperate so much to the point as you noted he made no mention of his work. He openly opposed Emet when he tried to take Meteion, even damned his own people and world after getting his answer. I would say it would be fool hearty to think that he would help stop Meteion if him, Emet and hydtholus kept their memories.

So begs the question what kind of counter could they muster? Being that the only expert wont help and is fully willing to disobey those in charge. Then there is the fact that time was against them and has we learned. The amount of aether needed to reach ultima thule was astronomical and even in the etherial sea took eons to gather.
The writers put the ancients in a perverbaly no win senario.

[Cleretic]

I think an interesting hypothesis/question that one might have there is, could Hydaelyn have allowed the Thirteenth to fall to Void for that very reason? Would a soul that is 13/14ths whole still be susceptible to Dynamis?

What power would she have even had to stop it? Serious quesiton; with the limitations she was under, what could she have possibly done to make them not do that?

[KageTokage]

Even though the Sundering did objectively change the world for the worse, I can't help but wonder how much better things would've been had the unsundered not existed and by extension the Ascians as a whole.

They've been instigating conflicts and creating divisions since the dawn of the post-sundered world, and the lower tier Ascians seemed to largely be assigned to just sowing discord as opposed to working towards any greater goal in particular if incidents like Haukke Manor and Sui-no-Sato were anything to go off of.

[Cleretic]

Even though the Sundering did objectively change the world for the worse, I can't help but wonder how much better things would've been had the unsundered not existed and by extension the Ascians as a whole.

They've been instigating conflicts and creating divisions since the dawn of the post-sundered world, and the lower tier Ascians seemed to largely be assigned to just sowing discord as opposed to working towards any greater goal in particular if incidents like Haukke Manor and Sui-no-Sato were anything to go off of.

Oh, I've run the numbers: if it weren't for the Ascians, barely any of the major primary or secondary storylines of the game would exist.

The actual count I give for 'headline' storylines (so, MSQ and major side content) with no Ascian fingerprints on them is normally 'the dragon side of the Dragonsong War, the Four Lords, the Ivalice raids, and the Nier raids'. But reasonably, I don't even think the Dragonsong War would've happened; the dragons and Ishgard wouldn't have met if it weren't for the Allagan Empire, because the dragons would still be chilling in Meracydia.

[EaraGrace]

Even though the Sundering did objectively change the world for the worse, I can't help but wonder how much better things would've been had the unsundered not existed and by extension the Ascians as a whole.

They've been instigating conflicts and creating divisions since the dawn of the post-sundered world, and the lower tier Ascians seemed to largely be assigned to just sowing discord as opposed to working towards any greater goal in particular if incidents like Haukke Manor and Sui-no-Sato were anything to go off of.

I would love a bit of lore about the period after the Sundering and before the calamity of wind, but I won’t hold my breath.

[Shuuli]

No, because at that point of the game Meteion already had too much Dynamis to actually be overpowered. Zodiarck was not stopping her, he was just halting her efforts on the planet and he did so by consuming aether consistently. Which he did by literally eating people...

Hythlo said to us when we were waiting for our registration that after the initial half population was sacrificed to summon Zodi, there was still chaos in the world still, and so he wanted another half to fix the world. Who knows how much more he would have needed to keep things as they were and how long he could actually keep up.

So if we joined Emet and rejoined us, we might actually slowly died out by feeding our aether to Zodi. Also, Metion would be out there collecting more and more planet's dynamis growing more strong and eventually would been able to come for us again.

I just wonder, did Venat not try to explain the situation at all to the rest of the folks? Or she did but they did not believe her? I don't think everything happened from one day to another after they lost their memories... could she at least not prevent Zodiark summoning by explaining the situation to the people?

[sidurgu-12]

No, because at that point of the game Meteion already had too much Dynamis to actually be overpowered. Zodiarck was not stopping her, he was just halting her efforts on the planet and he did so by consuming aether consistently. Which he did by literally eating people...

Hythlo said to us when we were waiting for our registration that after the initial half population was sacrificed to summon Zodi, there was still chaos in the world still, and so he wanted another half to fix the world. Who knows how much more he would have needed to keep things as they were and how long he could actually keep up.

So if we joined Emet and rejoined us, we might actually slowly died out by feeding our aether to Zodi. Also, Metion would be out there collecting more and more planet's dynamis growing more strong and eventually would been able to come for us again.

I just wonder, did Venat not try to explain the situation at all to the rest of the folks? Or she did but they did not believe her? I don't think everything happened from one day to another after they lost their memories... could she at least not prevent Zodiark summoning by explaining the situation to the people?

she tried to in one cutscene but the amaurotians went back to begging zodiark to restore their paradise.

[Jandor]

Oh, I've run the numbers: if it weren't for the Ascians, barely any of the major primary or secondary storylines of the game would exist.

Yeah I did find that it rung a little hollow in Shadowbringers when Emet was lecturing us on our petty warlike nature, and Elidibus was lecturing us on terrible record-keeping of the past. Like c'mon guys, you two are the cause of at least 80% of those problems.

Maybe we'd have done a lot better if we hadn't had a bunch of melodramatic boomers spending all their free time skulking about in the shadows stirring the pot and moaning about how 'things were better back in mah day.'