*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[OhNooo]

The conflict between us and the Ascians reminds me of...how pretty much all the countries we each live in had native people who lived there first and were conquered. It was wrong of the colonizers to do what they did to the natives. But then you have all of us here who are alive and are a result of that colonialism. I kind of view the Ascians as natives going up to let's say a random citizen of a country and saying "We were here first so you've gotta go." And I'm like yeah it was horrible what happened to you but I didn't have anything to do with that. I can acknowledge that it wasn't right and I can try to educate myself and other people about what happened and how we can do better so that we don't have that same attitude that the conquerors had, but I'm not going to just lay there if you're actively trying to get rid of me. At the same time, I wouldn't be "sympathetic" or "understanding" to conquerors like "Oh yeah I understand why you did that. They were obviously savages and needed to be taught how to be civilized even though they lost their whole identity and a lot of them died off from diseases. In the end it turned out better for them."

[Alleo]

Correct me if i’m wrong but the souls sacrificed we’re stuck inside Zodiark were they not? So they weren’t able to return to the Lifestream which is where the honorable death stemmed from. In regards to the Emet thing, it just goes to show the extent someone is willing to go to save and protect their loved ones. We see this same thing with Ironworks and Graha who were willing to sacrifice people to save others.

They seemingly were quite fine with being part of Zodiark, because after all they could save and guide there star that way. So I get the feeling that this was honorable for them too. Even the Elpis Emet says that he would honor those and not make a mockery out of it by recreating Amaurot and the shades which is why he did not want to believe that we are telling the truth about his future behavior (which imo says alot how he and the others probably changed)

Graha Tia and the others were only able to do the plan because a lot of people supported it after they said it was to save us. So its not like they went against the majority of people. And it was from a future that was seemingly not getting much better anyway. So in that regards Graha and the Ancients are similiar if you only take the two sacrifices into account. Both sides done it to save a world that was bascially lost. And I honestly have nothing against the first two sacrifices. Ancients were willing to do that and if they had not done that all would have died. Its the third one were it gets bad. The planet was save again. They could just honor their lost people and go on, rebuiling it completely afterwarts. But as we see in Endwalker it was just not the perfect paradise anymore. Thus now suddenly other lifeforms should die so that they can get their paradies back. And this is bad. This goes against their goal to be the blood of the planet, its stewards.

Also there is a big difference between eating an animal to survive and sacrifing a huuuge mass of life for a selfish desire. The Ancients after all (according to the side quests) did not even need to kill animals for meals. They could just create their meal. So they have even less reasons for killing them. Yet somehow before they were quite fine with letting nature do its things (see the Volcano incident - also seeing the amount of monsters they would surely eat other creatures and people when they are leaving Elpis) and destroy cities yet when its about their paradise that they want back they would be ready to destroy all that was built by others before them by sacrificing the lifeforms? And we cant just ignore that Emet and the other Ascians were ready to then sacrifice the whole souls at the end anyway...so no its not just about chickens.

(The sundered need animals to eat too, they also need their skin and other stuff to survive. Unlike the Ancients were a not able to simply create stuff out of their own aether. And poachers are seen as a blight among their society so its not like sundered people are alright with it too)

If you complete both sidequest chains it leads to another sidequest where the observers feel bad for the creations the lykaones killed and they perform a sending for them.

And the sending with the flowers was created by us because they questioned us what we do to the death. So before they just returned them to aether. I do like the quest chain because we are able to question their belief. When the one Anient talks about the isle where they grow vegetables the "normal sundered" way, she says that she finds it useless because the results are not perfect. We are able to ask if only a perfect being is allowed to exist and then she realized that we as familiar would also fall under the not perfect and things about it. That shows that they are of course able to change but that even someone as nice as her is still stuck in the "everything perfect way".

The quest chain is still just one side of Elpis. The rest still dont have any problems with just disposing of the creatures. And its quite shown in just the MSQ. After all Hermes would not have such a negative outlook in life if most people were like the ones that at least gave them a sending. I mean he himself also still creates creatures to send out on his behalf.

I guess one can say that if they would have created less perfect beings that would even do some really bad things outside of Elpis they might have had been more used to grief. Maybe then they would have not planned that third sacrifice and life would have gone on.

[KizuyaKatogami]

snip

Again, how is it any different to when Eden we made creations just to slay them? Yes i understand Graha’s timeline situation but iirc, it was really only the entirety of Ironworks if i recall. They didnt really get the entire planet’s permission to do it and it’s a decision that quite literally would’ve destroyed the entire planet had it gone wrong. You can argue Ancients need creations because they’re using them to study for the preservation of the star. That takes priority. Likewise at this time they’re essentially soulless constructs a good amount of the time, and even when they do gain a soul they’re simply returning them to the lifestream. They aren’t being disrespectful in any way. They’re doing what they can to ensure the star’s survival. As we’ve seen from the short story in Graha’s timeline too, they do indeed move to do what they can with their circumstances, which they could’ve done all along. Instead they chose to gamble with peoples lives to bring someone back from the dead. I don’t see how that’s very different from the ancients.

[Cleretic]

Again, how is it any different to when Eden we made creations just to slay them?

The Eden primals were entirely willing to be part of exactly this. Garuda and Ifrit seemed kinda pumped about it, in fact. Pretty much as morally unobjectionable as you can get.

As I've mentioned before, though, the third sacrifice was no longer 'doing what they can to ensure the star's survival'. That was the second sacrifice; while that second sacrifice was definitely not the best way to do things, after it happened the world was right back into working order, with fires put out, wind now blowing, all that. The third sacrifice, we know from the Hythlodaeus shade in Amaurot (which was basically Emet's sockpuppet, and so can be trusted to have the right idea) had only one purpose: to bring back the people that were sacrificed to Zodiark. People that, incidentally, we learned later were still pretty okay with that decision (although some of them were pretty shaken up for other reasons when we spoke to them at Mare Lamentorum).

There was no 'for the good of the star' about the third sacrifice. That was for the good of the surviving Ancients, and nobody else. And it's rather unlikely that they sacrificed nothing but entirely willing things for it, given just how many they'd need to sacrifice for such a thing anyway.

[EaraGrace]

I'm just saying, those are not the same situations. And if we can't take their reactions into account, then frankly we have no baseline for what people in general would think. I also don't think their reactions would matter to begin with.

We are shown their reactions though! They nearly broke during the Final Days, understandably, and turned to Zodiark. If they knew the cause was out there, that it was the result of the death of all known life, and that defeating it would require them to face unimaginable despair, they wouldn’t have survived.

Based on my read that was her final backup plan on the offchance somebody wanted to try and challenge her. And again - It was in Venat's cards, she was literally planning to do it and had been in communication with the Loporrits and Sharlayans about doing it.

Given she tells us to find her and to “honor the promise made in another age,” I believe it was more than a back up.

It's the correct view, one we see reflected in the game, life, and as I said by WoL themselves.

If you wish to hold that view by all means do so. But that’s not the correct view, it’s one of many.

That's precisely my point. As it is, we have absolutely zero evidence that Hermes had any information of worth to add beyond what Venat already knew.

And my point is that that’s illogical and requires way more leaps than than the inverse.

That's exactly what happened though. She didn't want to reveal the truth to him on the offchance that he could be made useful. She has a history of doing this now.

You’re now taking completely different situations with differing context and conflating them. She did not manipulate him.

When I presented the idea, that indeed was all it was. Not up to me if you don't find it of interest.

So long as you recognize it’s based on unknown information, then you’re more than in your rights to suggest it.

Exactly who is being disingenuous here? You know full well the situation at the time of the third sacrifice and the situation now, 12,000 years later, are nothing alike.

Emet has not given up on the plan for millennia. Using the Sources inhabitants to replace the souls in Zodiark directly relates to the earlier plan to do just the same, this seems obvious.

That's something that I urge people to consider as well, but for the exact opposite reason. Endwalker has made the vast majority outside this forum forget the Ascians side of the tale. Nobody was saying Emet-selch was in the right, at least I would hope not, I wasn't around here when Shadowbringers debuted. However, he was liked because his goals were sympathetic in the sense of one losing their home and seeing it torn asunder for a place that seems far more miserable and bleak than the one that came before it. He wasn't necessarily one to be agreed with, but he was understood.

Meanwhile Venat, who has much the same views as Emet-selch but spun 180 degrees, is treated as only doing what she's done out of necessity, the only one who knows the truth, a hero, etc etc. However frustrating it may be for you, being one who dislikes Emet, I can promise you this dissonance of the narrative favoring Venat in absolutely everything is far worse for people who could truly empathize with the Unsundered.

Many people said Emet was right on this forum if my memory serves me correctly. It was a common point of discussion for a while.

[Alleo]

Again, how is it any different to when Eden we made creations just to slay them?

Hermes himself explained that there is a difference between magical constructs (which includes egis) and living creatures. Bascially some things get souls. Something that the Ancient cant create and cant control. They seemingly threat both of them the same and dispose them if they are not perfect.

The Ancient had the goal to nuture the star. They are the blood of the planet. They saw themselves as servants that will create the perfect star and that once their goal is finished return to it. (Which is what Hermes even questioned: What if all their work is done? Will they all just kill themselves?)

Yet after the calamity, after they have restored the star and its inhabitants they suddenly turn away from the goal to be the servants. Suddenly they want their perfect paradise back that they could have created themselves again over the years. Instead they did not want to accept the grief, the tragedy...no they wanted to ignore those hardships and go back to how it was. On the backs of other unwilling life. On the creations others of their kind had worked for a long long time. (And again we have no idea how the whole world looked like. Azems role imo would not have been needed if everyone everywhere was so powerful like the Ancients in Amaurot. Azem would not have needed to jump into a Volcano to save that island if the people there were the same.)

Grahas plan was only similiar to the first two sacrifices. After all the source was still messed up by Black rose when Graha woke up. So his plan involved creating a better future which in turn is like the summoning of Zodiark and the two sacrifices. Afterwards that stops..because the world of the Ancient was alright again. They at that point could have stopped the sacrifices and just started again (just like the sundered had to start again after every calamity). They had saved the planet. But they could not accept what happened and wanted more. That is the difference imo between those to cases. That both did sacrifices to get a better future but the other side could not stop after achiving it.

Emet has not given up on the plan for millennia. Using the Sources inhabitants to replace the souls in Zodiark directly relates to the earlier plan to do just the same, this seems obvious.

Exactly. And this is why I believe that the third sacrifice would have included such lifeforms too and not just chickens and other such animals. Its kinda interesting how he is going around, calling us not alive because we lack a complete soul and yet just shortly afterwards he tells us that we would die anyway, even after all the rejoinings, because they still need the souls to get their people back. That imo shows that no matter what, his Amaurotine people (after all a lot of the people on the source are reborn souls of the Ancient times, that all died before Zodiark was even summoned...) are always worth more in his eyes.

And part of that imo is because the Amaurotines saw themselves on the top but also because of the tempering.

[KizuyaKatogami]

How is Graha’s plan any different? They didn’t want to accept the grief or tragedy either.They wanted to instead turn to altering and messing with time to bring back the dead, willing to sacrifice millions for it. This is literally an exact mirror to the ancients 3rd sacrifice plan.It seems the WoL couldn’t accept the grief and tragedy of losing the scions as they’re brought back from the dead as well. Yes they dispose of the beings whether they have a soul or not, however that soul still goes back to the lifestream to be reborn again, they aren’t erasing it lol. Just like real life where overpopulation is an issue and people need to kill animals to prevent problems with that, i see it no different than that of what the ancients do. It’s strange to be nitpicking the ancients based on that. Like what is the problem exactly? We know they respect life, we know they cherish it. What exactly is the problem here?

[OhNooo]

How is Graha’s plan any different? They didn’t want to accept the grief or tragedy either.They wanted to instead turn to altering and messing with time to bring back the dead, willing to sacrifice millions for it. This is literally an exact mirror to the ancients 3rd sacrifice plan.It seems the WoL couldn’t accept the grief and tragedy of losing the scions as they’re brought back from the dead as well. Yes they dispose of the beings whether they have a soul or not, however that soul still goes back to the lifestream to be reborn again, they aren’t erasing it lol. Just like real life where overpopulation is an issue and people need to kill animals to prevent problems with that, i see it no different than that of what the ancients do. It’s strange to be nitpicking the ancients based on that. Like what is the problem exactly? We know they respect life, we know they cherish it. What exactly is the problem here?

All of this.

It's hypocritical that Venat condemns the ancients for their inability to accept loss and suffering but then gives us the ability to bring back the scions.

[MikkoAkure]

How is Graha’s plan any different? They didn’t want to accept the grief or tragedy either.They wanted to instead turn to altering and messing with time to bring back the dead, willing to sacrifice millions for it. This is literally an exact mirror to the ancients 3rd sacrifice plan.

I feel like you’re giving too much importance to one random NPC’s “we’re still here” line from that one story. G’raha himself says nothing about of deleting timelines in the MSQ. The engineers had no idea what would happen and were in uncharted waters with their science that not even the Ancients had touched, so the possibility of disappearing was just a wild theory that might not have even come up until after the Crystal Tower departed the 8th Umbral Era.

Another importance is that Zodiark only could have returned the souls that were sacrificed to it. People who willingly gave up their lives not knowing they could be returned in order to save their star. The engineers of the Ironworks weren’t even saving themselves. They were throwing a light into the past in order to make a timeline that doesn’t fall victim to Calamity.

The alternative would have just been rolling over and allowing themselves to be killed by bandits in a world that has been vastly depopulated where society collapsed. Despite Midgardsormr heralding in the 8th Astral Era with the Ironworks engineers in that story, they still face an uncertain future that still has 2 surviving unsundered Ascians as well as a still genocidally insane Fandaniel, and no real hope to prevent the remaining calamities and ushering in the final destruction of their world as well as the remaining other worlds. They were only able to prevent the 8th because they know exactly how it happened and which shard was involved.

[KariTheFox]

Erm, Venat did not give the WoL the means to return the scions to life(also they were never actually dead). She gave the WoL the means to call something that had been lost, which was used to summon Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus, and they granted us the means to get the scions back.

Venat had absolutely no way of knowing how you would use the power she bequeathed you, because she was dead at the time. I really fail to see how she could possibly be a hypocrite under those circumstances.