Disappointed in one Endwalker Aspect [SPOILERS]

[Lauront]

She can be, and is, because she shortened them to such a degree that most of the life has to focus on survival rather than fulfillment and purpose. Because most of the life has to focus on issues that did not used to be problems(or were problems that had been solved long ago), such as the creation of medicine and other such similar things.

It's important to note that the Ancients valued finite life, because they valued the Star's life. Their lives are referred to as the planet's lifeblood by Hythlodaeus, but clearly they valued finding true fulfillment and purpose more.

I think that is probably a better way of framing it.

We can surmise the ancients did not live forever but Emet-Selch (in the Ladder encounter) describes them as living for an age, or in the FR version, as being practically immortal. So I'd consider it to be of little relevance whether infinite lifespans were reduced to rather short ones, or whether ones we'd consider exceedingly long were cut in such a fashion. It is still a drastic reduction.

I'd actually argue that to some degree we do have proof that the ancients had an upper age limit. During Meteion's report to Hermes at the top of Ktisis Hyperborea, we hear her talk of a species that tried to find a scientific way to cheat both death and ageing and that said civilization discovered that death and time were both immutable constants that could not be avoided and were inevitable. So while it doesn't directly state that the ancients weren't immortal, for me at least it does tell us that no species in FF14 can be immortal and I can't see them writing this and then turning around and saying the ancients were the exception to this rule.

She is very likely to be referring to the Ea there. Their discovery of the eventual heat death of the universe, resulting in nihilistic tendencies, no doubt factored into death being an "inevitability".

We have no idea when the Qitana Ravel paintings were created, only that it was before Ronka. It could be they were painted by someone with the Echo, or even that one of the Ascians aided in creating them (Emet is a "patron of the arts" and shows up there right on cue for example).

They sketched out something of an answer to this here.

14. It's been observed by players that in the Chrysalis, the meteor phase of the fight has a crystal formation very similar to the Crystal Tower, as well as a figure that looks a lot like Hydaelyn's portrayal in the caves. Could you please elaborate on what the Chrysalis is and why the Ascians chose to portray scenes of both gods?

Oda: The cave painting was not done by Ascians, but by someone who had a memory of the world before the Sundering. Perhaps he saw it in a dream or something, and then made a mural. The reason why there’s a often crystal-shaped motif when it comes to the Ascians is that Zodiark's crystal is sort of the antithesis to the Mothercrystal of Hydaelyn.

Of course, this sort of thing could end up changing when put down in the next EE or whatever, but it will have to do for now. So it is indeed very difficult to pin it down, and they're attributing it to surviving in memory, and as we know from how the Echo is triggered, said memory can persist very, very long depending on what it is. It is worth noting that we do have some account of the earlier periods of history in the game, to which the below is relevant:

The First Umbral Era was a prehistoric era that followed the First Umbral Calamity.

Drawing from the songs and writings of countless civilizations, theologians believe prehistory to be a tempestuous time of uncontrolled creation overseen by a mercurial god or gods—creation which abruptly ends with the destruction of all that exists, ultimately allowing for the rise of mankind from the wreckage.

Historians and scholars of biological fields, on the other hand, claim that mankind could not have simply "appeared" and suggest an evolution of the species in the thousand thousand years preceding the first calamity. What the two groups do, however, agree upon is that modern history begins with the First Umbral Era.

We can surmise that it was a near total reset:

It is during the First Astral Era that mankind is believed to have learned the essentials for survival—the ability to carve stone tools and the ability to make fire. Tools allowed for the rise of agriculture and a departure from hunting and gathering, which eventually resulted in the abandonment of nomadic lifestyles and saw the establishment of villages and towns. Within these towns, civilization thrived and basic sciences such as animal husbandry and simple metallurgy were discovered and refined.

As the towns grew, so did the hegemonies that oversaw the towns until finally kingdoms were born. However, kings, as is their wont, are rarely content with what they have, and soon the leaders of the newly formed countries abandoned the creation of tools for the forging of weapons, and the era descended into bloodstained madness.

While the 1UE is preceded by a calamity of wind, only the target shard would be consumed wholesale, and I believe had these tools already been developed and in memory and use of them understood, they'd be in use. Seems far likelier given how the sundering operated that man had to start back at step 1. One could quibble about how accurate the source is and make of it what one wishes, but it's all we have for now - a 14 times divided star of an Etheirys that was still itself in the process of rebuilding once Zodiark revitalised the star, with ruins of arcane buildings of little practical use without the know how to operate them dotted about, would fit the bill.