*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[MikkoAkure]

As for the rest, the thought occurred to me that after 75% of the Ancients had sacrificed themselves to stop the Final Days and restore life to the star, it's possible a decent amount of those left would've been the 'chaff' of society. Those lacking in fortitude, content to live off the good will of others, and seeking handouts from Zodiark similar to what we saw in the post-Elpis cutscene. Many of the 'best' of them are the ones who likely would've been the first to sign up, like Hythlodaeus.

That's an extremely wild reach to make.

I think it’s also important to note that based on some of the side quests in Elpis, the ancients weren’t exactly that afraid of death, with it actually being noted as a good thing and portrayed as it not being the end. Their views most likely only changed because of the final days aka something that shouldn’t even had happened were it not for Meteion and her terrible views. In the end they just wanted to reverse the event that shouldn’t have happened in the first place, very similar to how Ironworks wanted to reverse the black rose incident and they messed with time and put an entire timeline at risk to do so. If the protagonists can do it why can’t the ancients?

I feel like the difference is the context in which both groups performed their actions.

Zodiark's first two actions were fueled by willing sacrifices and is itself a heroic effort to save the planet. The Third action would have been performed after life has already been returned to the planet and the calamity was over and would have cost the lives of the unwilling. Though I wish we had more clarity on the amount of time that took place in between Zodiark doing things, how much society changed in the face of Zodiark, and what the state of the planet and life was at the time.

The Ironworks intended to send a time-and-space machine into the past to an alternate shard amid a society that had completely crumbled and the knowledge that now there's nothing preventing the Ascians from completing the remaining rejoinings and destroying reality as they knew it for everybody. That timeline looks better off in the short term because Midgardsormr wakes up and decides to help them out and their timeline wasn't deleted, but in the long term, the Ascians will still probably win and Zodiark will be reborn down the line.

Their whole point was to throw a light into the past in order for there to be a different timeline that they will not benefit from, that will not have to go through what they did and I think it is that part which makes them heroic. People keep leaning in on the "possible timeline destruction" line from the Tales of the Shadows, but that's obviously not what ended up happening and isn't even brought up in the main game.