*Spoilers* The Past and After the Endwalker MSQ End

[Cilia]

Dynamis was such an esoteric field of study Emet-Selch didn't know about it, Venat didn't know about it, his fellow researchers on Elpis knew little to nothing about it, and Hermes was the only person known to have intentionally created an entelechy - and a self-willed one, at that. Even if others knew about dynamis, with the information at our disposal he was unquestionably the expert on the subject. I seriously doubt any other researcher would be able to work just as well.

Ultimately Elpis exists as part of a time loop; everything that takes place there already happened, therefore we have no way to actually change the events that take place there without creating a paradox. You can go backwards in time without creating a paradox, but if you "change" the future and / or are not in a time loop you won't be able to return to the present from which you sallied forth unto the past. We don't know if G'raha could do it because he never tried, and the PC's interest was in saving the world of today, not yesterday.

Besides which as per multiverse theory there are infinite other realities where Amaurot never fell. So, go nuts in fanfics.

[Veloran]

Dynamis was such an esoteric field of study Emet-Selch didn't know about it, Venat didn't know about it, his fellow researchers on Elpis knew little to nothing about it, and Hermes was the only person known to have intentionally created an entelechy - and a self-willed one, at that. Even if others knew about dynamis, with the information at our disposal he was unquestionably the expert on the subject. I seriously doubt any other researcher would be able to work just as well.

Nothing we're told about Hermes' contribution to the Zodiark project has anything to do with Dynamis. Rather it's recognizing the connection between areas afflicted with the Final Days and the stagnicity of the aether currents in those locations that he's credited with. Something Venat was already aware of.

You can go backwards in time without creating a paradox, but if you "change" the future and / or are not in a time loop you won't be able to return to the present from which you sallied forth unto the past.

Venat suggests that WoL may actually be returning to an altered future if she is successful in safeguarding her present.

[Rulakir]

Regardless, as Veloran pointed out, dynamis is never named as a factor in Fandaniel's contribution to the Final Days.

[Iscah]

This is all just sounding like too many levels of speculation about an event that can't and didn't happen in our timeline.

If the writers wanted to create a branch of time where we save the ancient world from the Final Days, there is the potential to write a sequence of events where it can be saved.

If they don't want to go there, they are not going to explore the possibility.

Overall though, the story pushed the idea so hard that the ancients' outlook on life doomed them to failure - not just in Elpis but in the parables of the Dead Ends - and so I can't see them returning to it and saying "actually their attitude isn't so bad and we'll make a second timeline where they just carry on doing what they were doing".

[Cleretic]

Regardless, as Veloran pointed out, dynamis is never named as a factor in Fandaniel's contribution to the Final Days.

Does it have to be? Do you need that level of hand-holding?

Hermes is the only noteworthy expert on dynamis; it's more a coincidence than a product of his role, similar to how Hades' connection to the underworld wasn't a requirement of the seat of Emet-Selch, meaning that they weren't guaranteed to have an expert on deck. As Hermes tells us, dynamis essentially has power when aether is weaker. The Convocation were able to predict where the End of Days was going to erupt because celestial aether currents--which were also not a commonly known concept, and like dynamis were largely unknown to the present day--were weaker. This was also what led to the solution of Zodiark. Crucially, the reason these factors weren't connected in-story until Elpis was because the guy who told us was The Watcher, who didn't know that connection.

Did you need the connection spelt out for you by the game itself? That the guy that knows what happens when aether gets thin probably used that knowledge of what happens when aether gets thin to solve the problem of something bad happening in places where aether was thin?

[Veloran]

Did you need the connection spelt out for you by the game itself? That the guy that knows what happens when aether gets thin probably used that knowledge of what happens when aether gets thin to solve the problem of something bad happening in places where aether was thin?

Yes, I'm sure that was meant to be inferred and thus went unstated. Unlike the countless times an obvious and directly-stated plot-point is reiterated to the player because it's meant to be understood.

But no, I'm forced to assume they didn't know and Hermes never recognized it because every single time it comes up in their context (Emet-Selch explaining it, the Amaurot phantoms explaining it, the Watcher explaining it etc) the Final Days is always referenced as a giant mystery with seemingly no cause that nobody understood. Whereas "the planet is being bombarded with mystical space energy" is a pretty clearcut problem. Like if Earth was being slammed with a huge solar storm, nobody should be acting mystified that electronics everywhere are frying out.

[Rulakir]

My feeling has always been that to justify a character performing an act as severe as the sundering, intentionally and with full knowledge of the devastating future, the reasoning had to be iron clad. My POV is that the writers failed to make this case and it wasn't just with Hermes. All of Venat's reasoning is faulty.

If I'm to accept that this was the only way, that what we ended up with was the best case scenario, then they needed to do a lot better. Otherwise, I have no reason not to believe there was a better outcome that Venat sabotaged either in ignorance or hubris.

[Lersayil]

My feeling has always been that to justify a character performing an act as severe as the sundering, intentionally and with full knowledge of the devastating future, the reasoning had to be iron clad. My POV is that the writers failed to make this case and it wasn't just with Hermes. All of Venat's reasoning is faulty.

If I'm to accept that this was the only way, that what we ended up with was the best case scenario, then they needed to do a lot better. Otherwise, I have no reason not to believe there was a better outcome that Venat sabotaged either in ignorance or hubris.

Failed might be the wrong way of looking at it. I think its very intentionally portayed as a questionable decision, but one that we as the sundered clearly benefited from. They might've pushed the sympathy for both sides a bit too hard in EW though. I prefered Shb levels, where the villain was sympathetic but still clearly a villain (for us anyways).

[Lyth]

You don't need to know all the answers to solve a problem. You just need to know where to look to find them.

Part of Emet's reasoning for selecting Hermes is based on this:
'That personal annoyance aside, Hermes' knowledge is undeniably impressive. Given that there are none among the Fourteen who specialize in the celestial, he would be a welcome addition.' (MSQ: Lives Apart)

It doesn't matter if there are people out there who happen to be experts in Celestial currents or Dynamis. None of them are on the Convocation and in charge of policy. This is the whole point of having an advisory council or cabinet. You could write a fanfic about how some recluse researcher broke into the Convocation proceedings, explained everything that was wrong with the Final Days and the solution before being arrested, and spared the Ancients the need for Sunder-Anchovy Pizza-Murder. But we have enough fanfics on these forums nowadays, and not enough actual validated lore.

[Cleretic]

Failed might be the wrong way of looking at it. I think its very intentionally portayed as a questionable decision, but one that we as the sundered clearly benefited from. They might've pushed the sympathy for both sides a bit too hard in EW though. I prefered Shb levels, where the villain was sympathetic but still clearly a villain (for us anyways).

Yeah, this is absolutely the angle. Tactically, Venat's plan was ironclad (or at least, as ironclad as it could get). Ethically, it was questionable.

To a point on an 'ironclad plan' though, you have to be willing to take the authors' word on it. Actually showing to exact lengths that a plan will be successful--and more successful than any alternatives--would just get tedious and boring, as well as lessening the impact of the actual characters enacting said plan, not to mention being basically catnip to people who value being smarter than the story over enjoying it. You kinda have to accept whatever groundwork the story goes through to confirm 'this is a good plan'.

Emet-Selch specifically saying that Venat's plan worked when his wouldn't have is part of that. Emet-Selch is a trustworthy adjudicator of Plan Goodness here, both as someone who initially opposed it and someone with a uniquely wide amount of knowledge of the situation, so if he says that it's the only one that would've worked then we can safely assume that is indeed true.

You don't need to know all the answers to solve a problem. You just need to know where to look to find them.

Part of Emet's reasoning for selecting Hermes is based on this:
'That personal annoyance aside, Hermes' knowledge is undeniably impressive. Given that there are none among the Fourteen who specialize in the celestial, he would be a welcome addition.' (MSQ: Lives Apart)

It doesn't matter if there are people out there who happen to be experts in Celestial currents or Dynamis. None of them are on the Convocation and in charge of policy. This is the whole point of having an advisory council or cabinet.

And similarly, yeah, this is the sort of evidence you need to accept. You don't need to know the exact conditions of the plan nearly as much as you need to know that the characters within it can devise those conditions.

...actually, the only time you need to know the exact conditions of a plan in a story is when the plan goes wrong. At that point you need to know the details so you can recognize them yourself. It's why heist movies go over the plan, so you can recognize when the plan goes bad. Which is actually why we ultimately know more details of the Zodiark plan; that's the one that failed, so we needed more detail as to how.