Quote Originally Posted by Lersayil View Post
The story and narrative greatly emphasizes the value of life (at least the sentient, self-aware kind) and freedom of will. If the Ancients didn't hold these values, at least to some degree towards themselves and their creations, the sundered (and by extension we) would have no sympathy for them, no matter how lofty their ideals of "the greater good of the planet" were. It would also be much harder to sell them as objective superiors of the sundered, hence making much of Shb very one sided. The story needed them as sympathetic, thus they vaguely cared at least to an extent.

Blatant disregard for intelligent life and free will in the face of the "greater good" is a classic villain trope after all, not to mention any and all cautionary tales of artificial intelligence.
I think where the subjective opinions on the Unsundered, at least where I know I am differing, in that I found the presentation of the Ancient to fail at showing them as objective superiors of the sundered - their lifestyle may have had material comforts than the Sundered -at least for the people shown living in Amaurot and Elpis, and again my suspicions of what the rest of the planet and the other inhabitants for Etheirys remain, because it has been so vague and because the societies that have been created as echoes of theirs (Allag and Garlemald) had very high standards of living for its citizens at the expense of anyone that was not part of their privileged upper-class. Cynicism, perhaps, but I still don't trust the Ancient Society as a Utopia - and I certainly dislike their societal pressure for 'fulfil additions of creations for 'betterment of planet', nebulously defined' and then commit ritual suicide. But I compare them to ARR Alphinaud for a reason- that brand of idealistic but immature patronization, which is both sympathetic but grating and less preferable to post-development Alphinaud. There's a side-quest option with Clarion where you can tell her what you think of the Ancients- either they seem like gods or they're just like us- and I wish there was another option to compare them to ...well, the Lopporits.