*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[Cleretic]

So one of the bigger questions I sort of thought of; from a practical non-ideological standpoint, was sundering the star really necessary?

A sundered Zodiark, with only 7 rejoinings (even when he had NO rejoinings at one point); was able to hold The Final Days at bay for over 12,000 years with no real sign of faltering in the slightest. Wouldn't it stand to reason that full power unsundered Zodiark could just hold Meteion's dynamis wave back for pretty much all of eternity? Making the sundering pretty much pointless for non-ideological reasons.

In brief: Yes, it was.

It is confirmed, by Emet-Selch himself, that the Convocation's plan never would have actually succeeded in the (very) long-term. This is partly because Zodiark eventually would have faltered, and because they were going down a road of a neverending cycle of sacrifices to try to maintain an unsustainable perfection.

[Vyrerus]

So one of the bigger questions I sort of thought of; from a practical non-ideological standpoint, was sundering the star really necessary?

No. One of the biggest plot holes in Endwalker is the fact that the Ancients possess on demand Echo visions for memory visions. All Venat had to do was let other Ancients interview the memories she never lost, and then they could have taken the fight to Meteion indirectly through creating other Entelechies after taking the information from Hermes in the same manner, since he rid himself of the memory of Meteion running off but not of the memories necessary to make Entelechies and the know how for an Ancient to interact with and create beings that could interact with Dynamis.

But that's not the story they have to work around. See, the Sundering is necessary for our story to happen, so it has to be told in a way that makes it seem like, "Yeah it was necessary, completely." It'll never pass scrutiny, but so goes most of the game.

As for your Zodiark assertions. They are correct. It should also be noted that he holds the world in its aether blanket passively. There is no exertion on his part. It is part of the weave of his being. It's somewhat of a nice solution for Etheirys, and it was conceived without full knowledge of Meteion's song, which is why it doesn't solve the problem. It sorta leaves the rest of the universe to her machinations though, and I'm loathe to just take her hivemind's word for it that all of the other civilizations in the universe are all dead.

[Cleretic]

No. One of the biggest plot holes in Endwalker is the fact that the Ancients possess on demand Echo visions for memory visions. All Venat had to do was let other Ancients interview the memories she never lost, and then they could have taken the fight to Meteion indirectly through creating other Entelechies after taking the information from Hermes in the same manner, since he rid himself of the memory of Meteion running off but not of the memories necessary to make Entelechies and the know how for an Ancient to interact with and create beings that could interact with Dynamis.

Okay, so I outlined this in a post that was part of a deleted page-or-so of another topic (and fair enough, the argument it was part of was getting ugly), but we can't make assertions like this. There is no value in saying that the story doesn't work because we think we're smarter than the characters within it and have figured out some invisible third option. That gets us nowhere in engaging with the story, and just sends us off into fantasy, arguing against points that the game never actually made.

We have to accept the boundaries put forward by the story itself, that Hydaelyn's plan worked when the alternative would not have. This is directly stated in the game itself, by Emet-Selch (the likely most qualified person to make such a claim): "Still, you must be commended. Our methods would not have brought mankind this far." The moral question is the one that remains, because the practical question has been answered. We can't enter a third option into contention unless the game provides one that's more than just theory.

Which it still might, I will point out! We still don't know what Azem was up to after leaving the Convocation, they may have pursued and found a better alternative. But until one is provided, a third option is just fanfiction. And I've got no problem with fanfiction, but it's just not admissable evidence.

[Zoliru]

So one of the bigger questions I sort of thought of; from a practical non-ideological standpoint, was sundering the star really necessary?

A sundered Zodiark, with only 7 rejoinings (even when he had NO rejoinings at one point); was able to hold The Final Days at bay for over 12,000 years with no real sign of faltering in the slightest. Wouldn't it stand to reason that full power unsundered Zodiark could just hold Meteion's dynamis wave back for pretty much all of eternity? Making the sundering pretty much pointless for non-ideological reasons.

Nope, and that was a major issue with endwalker.

Not only has Zodiarc proven to be able to literally stop the wave of dynamis for thousands of years which clearly means even if he faltered it would be many many thousands years from now which as you can imagine is time enough for the ancients to figure out what happened.
Like i pointed out earlier, we are not able to see a lot of energies in real life, but we have made tools to measure such energies, imagine Ancients with the power of creation, and we already have a tool sensitive to dynamis in the elpis flower.

Another major issue is Venat, There's two issues here
1) Either suddenly both the convocation and the entire ancient world lost a ton of intelligence due to despair and could think of literally nothing else other than MOAR SACRIFICE, and considering we know how weak tempering actually is, that was clearly not the reason. Especially the convocation being so full of despair, when we are talking about the smartest individuals of the ancient world, it makes no sense to act like that.
OR
2) She witnessed the desperation of certain ancients and was so disappointed she literally sundered the world early on, never giving the convocation or other intelligent individuals to figure out what happened with the final days.

We are talking about an extremely inquisitive and research focused society, the idea that suddenly nobody cared about what caused the final days and all were just running around being sad and desperate in the streets makes no sense, many would absolutely devote themselves into figuring out what caused the end of days and find out about meiteion and use her superior immune to dynamis forms to blast her with some concentrated aether attack, plus let's not forget zodiarc which can be used to fight meiteion.


At the end of the day it is the problem of introducing the Ancients as immortal being with the power of creation, those two combined are enough to solve any problem, including Meiteion and Venat would have known it due to her life's experiences, but the story had to justify the sundering so we got what we got, which isnt bad but the more you think about it, the more you realize the Ancients would have stopped meiteion themselves given enough time, which said enough time was in ABUNDANCE, thanks to Zodiark.

[Lurina]

Okay, so I outlined this in a post that was part of a deleted page-or-so of another topic (and fair enough, the argument it was part of was getting ugly), but we can't make assertions like this. There is no value in saying that the story doesn't work because we think we're smarter than the characters within it and have figured out some invisible third option. That gets us nowhere in engaging with the story, and just sends us off into fantasy, arguing against points that the game never actually made.

We have to accept the boundaries put forward by the story itself, that Hydaelyn's plan worked when the alternative would not have. This is directly stated in the game itself, by Emet-Selch (the likely most qualified person to make such a claim): "Still, you must be commended. Our methods would not have brought mankind this far." The moral question is the one that remains, because the practical question has been answered. We can't enter a third option into contention unless the game provides one that's more than just theory.

Which it still might, I will point out! We still don't know what Azem was up to after leaving the Convocation, they may have pursued and found a better alternative. But until one is provided, a third option is just fanfiction. And I've got no problem with fanfiction, but it's just not admissable evidence.

I don't think people are saying that these things should have literally happened in-universe, they're saying that the writers did a bad job of explaining/justifying why they couldn't, or why Venat behaved the way she did in general. People aren't indulging in fantasy or fanfiicng about what the characters could have done, they're criticizing the scenario itself.

[Vyrerus]

Okay, so I outlined this

Except we can, because the Echo IS part of the game, and the Ancients do have it on demand, AND they don't use it. It's not theory, it's conveniently sidelined fact. The third option isn't presented because it can't be for narrative reasons. For narrative reasons there wasn't even actually a second option. They're not even put on the table, because the narrative has to be obeyed. It's an obvious hole, and you can pretend that it's not all you want. I don't care about what Emet-selch says with regards to our success. Our success was a given, his statement in and of itself is a redundancy (and it more or less highlights that, oh hey, until he died his memory was stilled erased and nobody gave him the 4-1-1 on Meteion. You can't solve a problem you don't know about).

As for Azem. I've got a feeling they're going to keep him as part of referential dialogue. Never gonna find out what Azem's up too.

[Cleretic]

Except we can, because the Echo IS part of the game, and the Ancients do have it on demand, AND they don't use it. It's not theory, it's conveniently sidelined fact. The third option isn't presented because it can't be for narrative reasons. For narrative reasons there wasn't even actually a second option. They're not even put on the table, because the narrative has to be obeyed. It's an obvious hole, and you can pretend that it's not all you want. I don't care about what Emet-selch says with regards to our success. Our success was a given, his statement in and of itself is a redundancy (and it more or less highlights that, oh hey, until he died his memory was stilled erased and nobody gave him the 4-1-1 on Meteion. You can't solve a problem you don't know about).

As for Azem. I've got a feeling they're going to keep him as part of referential dialogue. Never gonna find out what Azem's up too.

Okay, if you're going to keep clinging to this, then I'm going to pull it apart.

Your entire argument is hinging on, essentially, the assertion that Venat could have talked her way into getting the Ancients to replicate the conditions that ended up working with the Scions. And you've decided that the reason they couldn't, that you've cut down, is because Venat couldn't get people to believe her, except that the Echo would let them and so the argument is invalid.

Except the game never says that she would struggle to get people to believe her. The reasons she's selective about who she tells are twofold:

1. As Hermes himself spoke about, the only way the world has a chance is if he doesn't know about his hand in the End of Days. He will either lose his composure, or outright switch sides, and that's basically a death sentence for the planet because he's the only dynamis-knowledgeable person in a position of power to act in response to it. So she can't tell the Convocation, or anyone else who would tip Hermes off, because even if they don't tell him directly, he would be inquisitive enough to know something's wrong. Zodiark's existence is an important defense, and so Hermes has to stay oblivious enough to make it.
2. Huge bummer. Most people aren't going to take the news of 'hey the world is going to end in horrific disaster' tremendously well; and in fact, we know for a fact the Ancients as a whole most definitely do not. So she has to tell not just people who can be trusted with a secret, but people who can be trusted with a soul-crushing truth.

She does this, and amasses the group we see in Anamnesis in 5.2. So now your theory poses another question: if she has these allies, why doesn't she just go with them to solve the problem right then and there? Well, again, there's two reasons.

1. There's no way she could have known what they'd need. Remember that Ultima Thule is an enigma until we arrive; it's not even a proven fact that there's anything there. Sure, by the end of Endwalker we know that what it took was eight dynamis-capable people with some Ancient help (well, technically nine, but Zenos kinda just provided moral support and a moving platform), but they had absolutely no ability to learn that.
2. The conditions that ended up succeeding couldn't possibly have been replicated artificially, and perhaps the greatest example of that is Estinien. The rest of the Scions connect with the tortured souls of Ultima Thule in their own unique ways, that would've been a tall ask to replicate perfectly; Y'shtola and Urianger reach out through their lifelong love for the pursuit of knowledge, G'raha with indirect experiences that connect with the Omicrons, Alphinaud and Alisaie with both their intellectual and emotional intelligence. But Estinien reaches out with personally-learned, empirical fact, breaking through the dragon's entirely logically-reasoned malaise with lived conviction and physical evidence that they have a future. The Ancients couldn't possibly have done that, because Midgardsormr was still flying.

Venat couldn't have known how to take these shortcuts. But even if she did, trying to take them would have led to failure that they couldn't afford.

The Ancients, intellectually, weren't fools, even though they might have been emotionally. So it stands to reason that if we can think of a third option, then so could they, and perhaps the reason they only had Venat's Plan Hydaelyn and Plan 'Sacrifice Everything To Zodiark' was because all the other plans wouldn't have worked.

[Cybylt]

At the end of the day it is the problem of introducing the Ancients as immortal being with the power of creation, those two combined are enough to solve any problem, including Meiteion and Venat would have known it due to her life's experiences, but the story had to justify the sundering so we got what we got, which isnt bad but the more you think about it, the more you realize the Ancients would have stopped meiteion themselves given enough time, which said enough time was in ABUNDANCE, thanks to Zodiark.

It wasn't a matter of intelligence but perspective and directive. They had no interest in seeking solutions that wasn't tucking themselves further under the cosmic blanket of Zodiark and ignoring the problem and its source because they felt that had perfection, but in experiencing the trauma of the Final Days they'd lost it. They didn't want to find out why they lost it, they didn't want to know what caused that trauma and heal it because doing so would acknowledge that perfection was lost. They wanted their perfection back, they wanted to unring a bell that had already tolled.

They would do nothing with all of that time but sacrifice in perpetuity to maintain their delusion.

[Vyrerus]

Okay, if you're going to keep clinging to this, then I'm going to pull it apart.

You realize you've yet to succeed in pulling anything I've ever discussed with you apart, right? You've failed again.

The first thing out of Venat's mouth is that no one will believe her. The other mentions are just her own supposition and fears, not facts. She quickly boards the S.S. Fulfill the Time Traveler's Tale.
The idea that Hermes is needed to stop the Final Days might be true... but if it's really about saving the world, they can pull the memories of how to create Entelechies from him with the Echo, that they can use at will. A tool that has served us hundreds of times to get information we have no other way to get, and we get it by scriptwriter's grace. This is the reverse. The characters that have the power to do that at will do not do it because it would destroy the plot. There is no other, actual reason that they don't.

We also didn't know what we needed and succeeded after SHE gauged our potential. If besting her was a good earmark, then she would have what she needs already. Whoops.

As far as number 2 down there, you're forgetting that those civilizations are contemporary with our own, or at least a few thousand years after the events of the Final Days. If she went back then, with a fleet of supporters and their own entelechies, then there wouldn't be any dragons or Omicrons yet. It's also a bastardization of the Ancients' live on your part to assume that there aren't enough among them that have life experience similar to that of the Scions... a band of teens to 30 somethings. What rot. Besides the hypothetical supposes the making of new entelechies to directly combat/interface with Dynamis. Oh and don't forget, Ancients wield creation magicks too. Just as Emet and Hyth made a field of flowers, the Ancients if brought to Ultima Thule and giving it any sort of weird form to walk upon could create using the aether in their bodies walk ways or jetpacks or whatever they desire.

Plan Zodiark only arrives due to Venat not informing anyone about what she knows, full stop. That is the plan that meets a crisis that the Convocation does not know the origin of. It in no way combats Meteion directly. It is not a plan for the problem source, because it is a plan that explicitly lacks full knowledge of the problem source. Plan Hydaelyn is the only plan in game that is actually acting with full knowledge.

[Cleretic]

Actually, the civilizations were confirmed to be contemporary to the Ancients, not us. When Meteion's report starts listing worlds, she gives both a Greek numeric designation and a description of what she finds; a few of these descriptions line up with civilizations we find in Ultima Thule and the Dead Ends; there's descriptions that match both the Ea and the Plenty, and both number and description that match the Nekropolis and, perhaps most clearly, the dragons (one of the first she mentions, in fact), which also implicitly places the Omicrons back then, too. So, yes, we do explicitly know that most of the worlds imitated by Meteion in Ultima Thule were worlds found in the surveying; which means that reasonably speaking, yes, Ultima Thule would have been close enough to identical in both periods--which means that the Ancients would have had the, to them, insurmountable obstacle of the dragons, who will only listen to proof that they do not have.

Then there's the matter of interacting with them, to make progress through the space. That isn't something they can do, because it requires both speaking from the heart and the ability to interact with dynamis--or, if you will, both magical and psychological empathy. This supposed Ancient version of the plan would get nowhere, since it separates the two; you can't get the knowledgeable and understanding Ancients to interact with dynamis, and the dynamis-capable people can't speak from the heart since their lives have been short and artificial.

But speaking of what Venat says... well, I jumped online to check 'the first thing out of Venat's mouth' after you leave Ktisis. Which I'd recommend you do, too, because it's actually this:

"I'm fine. Just a little tired."

"Can it be true? Are we the only ones left who see beauty in the world--in life? Are the stars above no more than husks of fallen civilizations?"

"And yet... I feel her. Though she is unimaginably distant, I feel Meteion's presence--and the place whereto we must go."

That's not stating anything resembling a difficulty in convincing people. Rather, it's her own stunned disbelief; she understands what she heard was the truth, but struggles to immediately come to terms with it.

But while I was in there, I grabbed some quotes from the very next cutscene, where I remembered she talked about her plan.

"In spite of this, we cannot allow the report that set this calamity into motion to become common knowledge. Were the masses to learn the fates of the other stars, I fear the situation would spiral out of our control. I must carefully consider who can be trusted, and bring them into the fold.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't hesitate to call upon the Fourteen. However, it was the desire for a fair determination that drove Hermes to attempt to erase our memories; were he made aware of his actions, there is no telling whether he would remain a friend or become a foe.

Alternately, we might try to alienate him from the Convocation. Yet in doing so, we would deprive ourselves of a brilliant mind who would be invaluable in the crises to come. Quite the dilemma... which is why I must work independently of the Convocation."

Which... hey, look at that. She has to be selective with who she tells because such terrifying news would bring widespread panic if broadly distributed, and can't tell the Convocation because that would set Hermes off. So, she has to go about her plan in secret, bringing in only trusted people to work on a plan that will save the world, despite the misgivings of the Ancients.


I don't like having to correct the record this hard or this often; I'm far more interested in the actual moral question of 'did Venat make the right choice', I actually think that's a really compelling discussion that you could come at from several directions. But it's just not possible to have that conversation while basic facts are being misrepresented, to cause complications to appear where there are none.