*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[Kordarion]

The Ancients had to sacrifice themselves for Zodiark because the Final Days had destroyed the world.

The first sacrifice was necessary certainly and I would agree that the second sacrifice, the one to return the world to an inhabitable state, was also understandable but the toxic nostalgia comes from the planned third sacrifice. The one where the ancients planned to sacrifice non-ancient life in order to bring back the dead who were lost. And on the topic of the final days, could the ancients have actually beaten Meteion? The only reason we were able to get to the point we could fight the Endsinger was because of our ability to interact with Dynamis, Thancred's sacrifice made Ultima Thule both a physical place and have a breathable atmosphere, the sacrifices of the other scions in turn were able to manipulate the surrounding Dynamis to give us a path forward. The ancients aren't able to do any of that, by their own admission they are unable to interact with Dynamis and therefore would have faced far more problems than we did in trying to reach Meteion. Then we have to consider the Endsinger's Ultimate Fate ability, where she mentions the use of dynamis in relation to our first LB3 and in the second instance of it where we only survived because of the scions hope filled prayers. Prayers that were probably more dynamis based than aether.

That is assuming that the ancients would even want to deal with Meteion directly, while I'll admit we only have a limited sample size, Hermes appears to be the only ancient with an interest in what lies beyond their star. And I doubt there would be many others considering their society's focus on stewardship over their specific star. What I think would happen based on what we know of the ancients is that had they known of the final days they would have still summoned a Zodiark like entity to protect their star and then go on as if nothing had changed, dooming the rest of the universe to the song of oblivion. I take this from the fact that if they, as a society, don't seem to be able properly appreciate the nuances of the life they create for their own star why would they care for the life of other stars.

Also it wasn't just one person deciding the fate of the star, while the final Elpis cutscene may seem to imply that Venat did it all on her own we know from the Anamnesis Anyder cutscenes that it was Venat AND a group of others that came together to summon Hydaelyn. That is a problematic part of that cutscene condensing large periods of time into a more symbolic sequence. In fact you even mention that there were people on her side one minute before turning around and saying she did it herself the next.

[Cilia]

I'm not arguing that the Ancients were in the right for wanting to bring back their old way of life through the sacrifices, I'm arguing that that it goes against everything else the story says - where we're shown time and time again that civilizations can break free of their bad impulses and change, usually by virtue of just a few dissidents willing to make a stink about it - to act like their destruction was some foregone conclusion that would have happened no matter what, even if Meteion wasn't around.

That was what you were originally saying three posts ago, right?

Yes? Be it an unforeseen natural disaster, a schism within their society, or the heat death of the universe, Amaurotine civilization would not last forever. Nothing does.

That's not to say they shouldn't struggle against the end, but accept that it's inevitable in one form or another. Accepting the transience of all things is a very hard thing to do, but very important for finding true happiness (because happiness doesn't last forever, and it takes effort to achieve).

[Lurina]

Yes? Be it an unforeseen natural disaster, a schism within their society, or the heat death of the universe, Amaurotine civilization would not last forever. Nothing does.

That's not to say they shouldn't struggle against the end, but accept that it's inevitable in one form or another. Accepting the transience of all things is a very hard thing to do, but very important for finding true happiness (because happiness doesn't last forever, and it takes effort to achieve).

You said that it was their "pursuit of perfection which would have doomed them sooner or later". That was what I was responding to, not the broader idea that everything will be destroyed eventually by virtue of the nature of reality. I don't think there's anything to indicate their culture was doomed to remain stagnant or to be overcome by the past.

[Rulakir]

Also it wasn't just one person deciding the fate of the star, while the final Elpis cutscene may seem to imply that Venat did it all on her own we know from the Anamnesis Anyder cutscenes that it was Venat AND a group of others that came together to summon Hydaelyn. That is a problematic part of that cutscene condensing large periods of time into a more symbolic sequence. In fact you even mention that there were people on her side one minute before turning around and saying she did it herself the next.

The dialog within the Anyder cutscenes implies her followers were unaware of her intent to sunder more than Zodiark. The last to speak to her acts like it's Venat who will be departing, not them. I find it difficult to believe she'd amass any following with the understanding that the goal was to destroy their civilization. It made sense when there was the possibility the sundering was accidental, but not once they made it intentional.

Edit: To clarify, I believe she gathered followers based on halting sacrifices to Zodiark, but evidence suggests she went rogue on sundering all of Etheirys.

[sidurgu-12]

required a lot of lives to be lost and a war before the head of the resistance realized that "villain has a point" in how the IVth treated people, etc.

which i still dont quite get. all we've seen is the ivth employing human experiments and primal tempering when the bozjans started to push back. it could be because they let non garleans rise through the ranks but that seems a bit hollow.

[Kordarion]

The dialog within the Anyder cutscenes implies her followers were unaware of her intent to sunder more than Zodiark.

I just re-watched the two Anamnesis Anyder recordings and while the second of the two does seem to hint at Venat's followers being unaware of the consequences of the sundering the first seems to imply that they did know the truth. The diplomatic ancient says that though Zodiark has managed to give the ancients a reprieve he has done nothing to stop the root cause of the issue. Looking back with our knowledge of Meteion and the Endbringer that implies to me that Venat's followers are well aware of the true nature of the final days. Afterwards Venat then asks those assembled if they are willing to do what is necessary to find a proper solution. While it does not directly say they know the effects of the sundering, if the previous line does show they know of the song of oblivion then it would not be difficult to believe that Venat told them of her plan to defeat Meteion, us. If she did then they would have to know of the sundering in its entirety to understand Venat's permanent solution.

We also don't know exactly how much the sundered ancients actually remembered of their world after the sundering. All we know is that the knowledge of the unsundered world was lost to history. If the plan was for them to remember then the diplomatic ancient in the second recording could have wanted there to be a shard of Venat in each world shard to combat the sundered convocation.

There is also the fact that in our final conversation with her in Elpis, Venat mentions forming a non-convocation aligned group to help in the fight against Meteion. If this is the same group that summoned Hydaelyn then it is easy to see another reason that they would have known of the full effects of the sundering.

[YianKutku]

Well, Emet says: "The inhabitants of these fourteen fragments were feeble, frail, and foolish. Oblivious to their imperfection, ignorant of their past. Malformed creatures thrashing blindly about. Pitiful. Disturbing. Depressing."

It doesn't sound like the state of the sundered at that time was such that the unsundered thought they could work with them. Plus, I'm sure they were still in shock at what happened.

I'm pretty sure this was also what Hermes thought of the Ancients. Oblivious to their imperfection etc.

Hermes decided to judge all the Ancients based on his own arbitrary standards, and Emet-Selch later decided to judge all the Sundered (including his own comrades like the Sundered Ascians and Lahabrea) by his own arbitrary standards.

[Veloran]

Accepting the transience of all things is a very hard thing to do, but very important for finding true happiness (because happiness doesn't last forever, and it takes effort to achieve).

As we see in Elpis, the Ancients were more than happy to accept the transience of their own lives and return to the star once they felt they had lived a fulfilling life.

Hermes decided to judge all the Ancients based on his own arbitrary standards, and Emet-Selch later decided to judge all the Sundered (including his own comrades like the Sundered Ascians and Lahabrea) by his own arbitrary standards.

And then Venat decided to judge all the Ancients according to her own arbitrary standard as well.

[RyuDragnier]

And then Venat decided to judge all the Ancients according to her own arbitrary standard as well.

So much grey in the Ancients to where it feels like everybody and nobody is the villain at the same time.

[Cleretic]

So much grey in the Ancients to where it feels like everybody and nobody is the villain at the same time.

Almost like that was the intention or something, and that declaring one of them to be unambiguously The Bad Guy is throwing away the entire driving point of that side of the story.

(...except maybe Hesperos. He might be the bad guy of an entirely different story, jury's still out, but generally becoming Literal Dracula makes things look bad for you.)