*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[MikkoAkure]

Do we see the walking sharks outside the Anyder? The Sahagin were playing about with the concepts inside, if we don't see them anywhere else it seems reasonable to conclude that they failed the testing and the concepts were shoved into storage.

Seeing it in the modern day also isn't necessarily a guarantee it passed testing, the whole long & thorough testing process rather broke down towards the end of their civilization.

There's two Anyders. The one with the sharks is Akademia Anyder which is Lahabrea's research facility in Amaurot proper, which means it was actively being researched. Anamnesis Anyder seemed to be the storage facility but there are no sharks there.

Eh I don't know if we can honestly count a fate during an event that will only happen 1 time unless they get bored and recycle it.

It's still in the game. Also in the description for an A rank hunt: "An Eorzean acquaintance of mine recently informed me of a most confounding incident. Evidently, a shark walking upon two legs assaulted the site of an annual faire! Though it defies reason, I cannot but feel...excited.". Also there's the walking shark minion, whom I'd assume is related.


Also, this thread has gotten to a weird point if now we're arguing over whether weird sharks were approved by the Ancients.

[Rannie]

There's two Anyders. The one with the sharks is Akademia Anyder which is Lahabrea's research facility in Amaurot proper, which means it was actively being researched. Anamnesis Anyder seemed to be the storage facility but there are no sharks there.



It's still in the game. Also in the description for an A rank hunt: "An Eorzean acquaintance of mine recently informed me of a most confounding incident. Evidently, a shark walking upon two legs assaulted the site of an annual faire! Though it defies reason, I cannot but feel...excited.". Also there's the walking shark minion, whom I'd assume is related.


Also, this thread has gotten to a weird point if now we're arguing over whether weird sharks were approved by the Ancients.

Ah didn't even know there was an A rank like that. Now I know and knowing is half the battle!

(Haven't sat and read the descriptions for the Hunts cause I don't do them often ^_^)

Also at this point questioning sharks and how much or how many of them where approved by the ancients seem to be a better discussion than some others... lol

[Cleretic]

Event one-offs are basically prime spots for them to foreshadow things, because they're a relatively light development load going on right when they're working on more major content. So they can tease whatever they want and know it doesn't necessarily have to make logical sense at the time.

It's really fun to see specifically what side content ends up being unexpected foreshadowing, because very rarely is it the stuff people expect. Often they do write something that toys with a concept that turns up 'in full' in a later expansion, and it can sort of feel like them doing some warmup stretches and doing a test run before the concept turns up in full. There were those Amdapor statues of what turned out to be Sin Eaters, Eureka was effectively creation magic, and most prominently recently there was the Dancer questline, which now reads as basically the dress rehearsal for the End of Days.

[Rulakir]

The Ancients, as represented by Emet-Selch as self-proclaimed spokesman, and who is also the subject of this thread, certainly felt free to judge us by their own arbitrary standards.

Okay? Are we RPing? I'm talking about players, i.e. real life humans, judging people worthy of condemnation when they're no worse than we are and arguably better than many.

[QT_Melon]

Amaurot definitely feels like a very emotionally immature society for how intellectually enlightened they are. There's a lot of relatively simple things they never seemed to consider, they're EXTREMELY bad at dealing with mental health issues (RIP Hermes, therapy hadn't been invented yet), and are so emotionally unprepared for great turmoil that Venat had to screen people for 'being okay to hear bad news', and was right to. If we can trust Emet's Amaurot to be accurate, then people were making grossly violent children's toys and not seeing a problem with that.

To be fair since I had mentioned the mental health observation in much earlier posts. I am not too sure its a fair way to throw shade at their society since it's taken quite a while for most societies to deal with mental health issues and worse off many proclaim to be highly advanced or enlightened as well.

I keep mentioning Lobotomies because that's exactly how mental health issues were dealt with and if one saw One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest it shows how long we have to go...

If we just base things off how they have it, we REALLY need to take a look at ourselves as well. I mean that people can proclaim one thing is better than the other like due to pur advancements. But at the same we have cars and planes computers... but to all of us that use them how many know how to make them? We aren't all Doctor Stone here :P

To me neither society was per say better than the other each came with their flaws. However, in order for us to learn we shouldn't have history erased. And if anything that shows how tempered people were to Zodiark because if that wasn't the case then Hydaelyn wouldn't need to erase.

I again feel both sides aren't great and did like the Ancients. I feel they get too much flack from vehement Team Hydaelyn supporters tho

I just also feel the story could have been better at making sure at points we really Feel options were exhausted and not fall the issues like "communication error" plots and such.

[Lauront]

To be fair since I had mentioned the mental health observation in much earlier posts. I am not too sure its a fair way to throw shade at their society since it's taken quite a while for most societies to deal with mental health issues and worse off many proclaim to be highly advanced or enlightened as well.

Yup, and to me it's particularly unreasonable to try extrapolate from Hermes that they did not take such things into account more broadly speaking. We know from Elidibus's flashbacks that Igeyorhm implored him to take a break from his work, for example. We could just as easily surmise that Hermes did a good job keeping his insanity well hidden - not just as Hermes, but as Amon as well. Even in our day and age, being bombarded with constant "reminders" about mental health, people are still able to fly under the radar, regardless of their position in society. Emet-Selch even implores him to join the Convocation after the lykaones incident on the basis that his reaction to that whole incident convinces him that Hermes is poorly cut out for the work in Elpis, so seeks to divert his talents to better uses. At the end of the day, it's easy enough to pass off as sane but eccentric when you're surrounded by other researchers mostly keen on focusing on their research. Regarding the general ability of her people to receive bad news, she had this to say...

Venat: Bleak as the contents of Meteion's report might be, many could hear it and remain content with their lives.
Venat: But not Hermes. For him, the veneer of perfection has long been cracked, and it was to the distant heavens he looked for the means to repair it.
Venat: I understand his anguish after a fashion─my own refusal to return is in opposition to the world's established order.
Venat: Yet for me, the imperfections only enhance the fragile beauty of our star. I will fight to see it delivered from destruction, warts and all.

So clearly her view of what her people could take wasn't that low. And of course in the follow-up scenes they did not embrace her musings about suffering; no wonder, considering by all accounts that the star was still dying at that point, and they had a means to halt this and reverse it all. So devoid of any context of why she's bringing it up, her words would sound like little than gratuitous philosophising...

In the end, one bad egg and a few aspects of their society which seem odd to us is not enough for me to arrive at the conclusion that they were "extremely bad" at mental health issues, whatever that means.

Okay? Are we RPing? I'm talking about players, i.e. real life humans, judging people worthy of condemnation when they're no worse than we are and arguably better than many.

IMO the way it was framed omits relevant context, because he had witnessed his people fragmented for reasons he did not even know, and then toiled for 12k years to undo it, and the "arbitrary standard" by which he was measuring them was what his people were like in their fullness. He tired, put the WoL and co to the test, and then honoured the terms of it. His disappointment at the WoL (as a fragment of Azem) was quite genuine according to this. Only by neglecting the sundering and its effects can you draw any kind of equivalence. Maybe he should've just moved on and let his people perish, because muh themes.

[YianKutku]

Okay? Are we RPing? I'm talking about players, i.e. real life humans, judging people worthy of condemnation when they're no worse than we are and arguably better than many.

And many players are also better than the Ancients as depicted in the game, so there is no real message to be had there.

If we're sticking to real life players, of course we're allowed to condemn the Ancients based on our own beliefs. We condemn our own people, ie real life humans, based on our own beliefs. There's a lot of discussion about Zenos "talking to the player", so the game clearly is intending to engage with us as players (at least according to those discussions), and if the characters of the game engage with us as players, it is fair for us players to engage with the characters of the game and condemn them if we feel they do not meet up to the standards of our beliefs. Whether we ourselves meet up to those standards is not actually relevant, since the characters in the game do not match their own standards either.

[Rannie]

You know one thing that has started to get me to wonder with this thread, once the world was sundered did Emet, Lahabrea or Elidibus try to do ANYTHING in terms of trying to unite the people under their cause or did they just wash their hands of them as a lost cause and start on trying to reunite the shards and screw up with the 13th. From the way it was they could be considered like gods compared to the sundered people and they may have had a missed opportunity.

[Rulakir]

There's a group called the "Cult of the Damned" in WoW that work to advance the efforts of the Lich King with the promise of immortality through undeath. I've always wondered why the Ascians didn't do something similar. I suppose because they wanted to work from the shadows, but I imagine they'd have a substantial amount of followers between the Source and all the shards with the promise of godlike powers and eternal life should their goal be met.

[Cilia]

There's a group called the "Cult of the Damned" in WoW that work to advance the efforts of the Lich King with the promise of immortality through undeath. I've always wondered why the Ascians didn't do something similar. I suppose because they wanted to work from the shadows, but I imagine they'd have a substantial amount of followers between the Source and all the shards with the promise of godlike powers and eternal life should their goal be met.

Black-masked Ascians.