Endwalker's story had me, but lost me. Ethical issues especially (spoilers)

[KariTheFox]

There's really no reason to care about the other worlds in the universe. Only "our" star is really relevant. In the unlikely event that other life-bearing worlds still exist out there? Well, sucks to be them.

It has been a consistent and prevelant theme since ARR that it is important to care about and try to help people outside of your immediate circle. It is the founding mission statement of the circle of knowing and the scions, the Eorzean city states were condemned for not looking beyond thier own provincial problems. The isolationism of Ishgard, the exclusivity of Eulmore, all painted as understandable, but wrong. I could go on with examples from every expansion.

"We should only care about our own problems, sucks to be everyone else." is condemned every time it comes up. To have that somehow be the conclusion at the eleventh hour would have been deeply unsatisfying and unthematic ending to the story.

[Absimiliard]

That's for us, not for the Ancients. Though I suspect reconstituted Ancients might actually care about other worlds due to their experiences while sundered.

[MikkoAkure]

Is it really that bad of an outcome? Successful Rejoining isn't going to allow the Final Days to resume, as Zodiark would still be alive. Besides that, there's all the experiences from their time as sundered. The newly unsundered Ancients would no doubt be very different from what they were, with much stronger wills and significantly altered outlooks from what they had before. They could even restore the world's depleted aether reserves in exactly the same way they had cultivated it in the past. Sounds like a pretty good outcome to me.

There's really no reason to care about the other worlds in the universe. Only "our" star is really relevant. In the unlikely event that other life-bearing worlds still exist out there? Well, sucks to be them.

Meteion was also hastening the destruction of the whole universe so she would have destroyed the Ancients one way or another.

[Absimiliard]

It would still have required a significant amount of time for entropy to claim all, sped up or not. Meteion did not have the power to bring the end on a whim even after collecting all that despair.

[Lauront]

[...]

It's a sad state of affairs when the only potential 'happy' ending for the Ancients is one in which the Ascians are ultimately successful in their Ardor only to still be ignorant of Meteion and both Hermes' & Venat's treachery. It's almost like EW was constructed to ensure that no positive outcome for them is possible. As a result, I sincerely hope we do not visit the Crystal Exarch's original timeline because we already know exactly how that would go.

[...]

There's really no reason to care about the other worlds in the universe. Only "our" star is really relevant. In the unlikely event that other life-bearing worlds still exist out there? Well, sucks to be them.

It's less a matter of strength of will and more so to do with ability to manipulate 'dynamis' (for how common it is in the universe, manipulation of it appears to be elusive, reinforced Endsinger's surprise in the fight at the LBs IMO); it was ultimately their dense aether that meant they interacted less readily with it, but if 8 sundered who could manipulate it well enough would suffice, I am sure plot contrivances could be introduced to allow for the ancients to do so (as touched upon here) - including the fact that Zodiark is imbued with so much prayer. However, I do share Rulakir's reservations about it. All the same, I am curious how they are going to touch on the ways time travel works, if they choose to.

[Alleo]

That's for us, not for the Ancients. Though I suspect reconstituted Ancients might actually care about other worlds due to their experiences while sundered.

Emet says that the remaining inhabitants of the source would be offered for the exchange of the Ancients souls. So bascially the only ones still alive would be the few Ascians with their huge emotional baggage and those that lived as a "god" for a very long time and who bascially went asleep after the sundering. None of these two groups sound like good canditates to defeat Meteion.

Edit:

Also as far as we know these now fully rejoined people should not just simply get their memories back. We did not just get memories when Ardbert rejoined with us so I doubt that it would happen with a full rejoining. On top of that these survivors could 1. be newborn souls since not everyone is an Ancient and 2. could be an Ancient that still loves the current world.

I really doubt that the survivors would be all too happy after all these people had loved ones too which the Ascians killed to get their past back. All of this of course if they survived which I doubt when you recall Emets words.