*Spoilers* The Past and After the Endwalker MSQ End

[EaraGrace]

The very nature of that statement confirms that Hermes wasn't the only option.

No, it doesn’t. Once again, Hermes was a brilliant mind, had knowledge of celestial aether currents, a wealth of experience from running Elpis and explicitly studied the subject. Interpreting “only a handful knew about the subject” and “he would be invaluable” as “he could easily be replaced” is ridiculous.

Venat knew of the connection, as such Hermes was rendered redundant.

Clearly you skipped reading my post.

The currents had to be stimulated in order to produce a shield of aether around the planet. Hence Zodiark's summoning and his aspect to astral - active - aether. It is not plausible that Hermes was the only person on the entire planet who could have recognized such a straightforward solution. Even less so when we consider that as of the end of Elpis Hermes' own mentor, the previous Fandaniel, was still alive and had yet to step down from the seat.

Let me use an example. Vaccines, in their most basic form, take a disease and use a deactivated form of it to ready the immune system for the real thing. A simple concept. Could you make a vaccine?

Or how about another. Local weather conditions are largely impacted by regular cold and warm fronts. A simple concept. Can you tell what the weather will be?

And all of this is still an utter aside to the fact that there is not even a thin veneer of rationale presented as to why Venat couldn't tell everyone after Zodiark was summoned and the Final Days halted. At that point Hermes is completely irrelevant and could be dealt with at will. Yet Venat still kept to secrecy and did not warn anyone else of the true threat intent on their destruction.

Yes a Convocation member and former head of Elpis doing everything in his power to destroy the world, with 2/3 of the worlds population stuck inside of a god he was instrumental in designing, Etheirys barely recovering from the destruction, and Amaurot divided in such a major way for the first time, is no big deal. That’s not even considering the fact that telling a tempered convocation, preparing a sacrifice of innocent life to Zodiark, is a pointless move. Their answer was clear.

Zodiark will save us.