*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[KizuyaKatogami]

To counter the idiotic plan to sacrifice half their population to bring forth a god, then sacrifice more to bring them back, and then do yet another sacrifice to...restore the world? A world that was still hurtling headfirst into the Final Days. Remember the last species in the Dead Ends? That was where the Ancients were headed.

Venat's plan was far from perfect but it was absolutely the lesser of two evils.

Don’t see how it was the lesser of two evils when it equated to mass murder if you count the age span difference and new vulnerability to illnesses. We don’t know if the ancients were heading for, that’s your headcanon. Don’t see how saving the world is an idiotic plan. You realize Venat’s plan required sacrifice as well, and Ironworks was willing to mass murder an entire timeline to bring us back. Still shocked people are calling the ancients plan idiotic, thought we grew out of that. What were their other options exactly? Or will you acknowledge that Venat could’ve gave them what she knew and they could’ve formulated a plan together to prevent the final days altogether?

[Lauront]

To counter the idiotic plan to sacrifice half their population to bring forth a god, then sacrifice more to bring them back, and then do yet another sacrifice to...restore the world? A world that was still hurtling headfirst into the Final Days. Remember the last species in the Dead Ends? That was where the Ancients were headed.

Venat's plan was far from perfect but it was absolutely the lesser of two evils.

If the plan seems idiotic, it's because you've completely misunderstood it - here are the relevant sources on it. They had no option but to resort to sacrifices of their own because of what the Final Days did to the planet. It's never stated to be their preferred option. They then had to resort to more to revive the planet. And it is only with the final, more contentious stage that they'd sacrifice some of the new lives to restore those inside Zodiark. The scenario shown within the Dead Ends final area, facile caricature as it is, was not an inevitability if she but shared that knowledge of the fate of that star (derived from a few lines of Meteion's report) and her deeper concerns... of course the story introduced various contrivances to stop that. Her entire plan is parasitic upon Zodiark's existence, all the same. It wouldn't work without him.

Were the ascians guilty of genocide? Sure. But so was Venat. And I rarely see anyone on Team Hydaelyn acknowledge that fact. And tbqf I want to have a way to break the timeline into two separate ones so the Ancients can have the happy ending they deserve too. If Venat had not committed genocide first with the Sundering the Ascians would never have even been a thing.

Absolutely. She's the very person who put them into that situation with no real understanding of why. She does not escape culpability in all this.

Rejoinings are 100% a power increase. This is why the Ancients are all so magically gifted and WoL is able to contain the Light after rejoining with Ardbert, because higher aetheric density means higher aetheric capacity. The denser your soul, the more aether you can take on.

We don't know the actual density of the residents of the First compared to other shards, and with the introduction of Dynamis there is an alternative way for less dense souls to still exhibit exceptional power, consider the extremely zealous Ran'jit (the only notable trouble WoL actually has on the First) for example.

Indeed. Here is a source on it:

4. Emet-Selch remarks that we are of the Source, "seven times rejoined". Is he talking about our soul, or only the world? If our soul has been rejoined, does that mean everyone on the Source has been rejoined to another soul-fragment each Calamity, or are we (and perhaps other specific characters) special in some way?
Oda: Each time there is a rejoining, any living things have the souls rejoined. This is true for everyone equally. The souls get more dense, and potentially more powerful.

Yoshi: The Rejoining isn't just for the characters, but for the whole world. Of course, this does apply to yourself, as well.

As you point out, this allows the WoL to carry more aether and there are ambiguities which make direct 1:1 comparisons between First/Source denizens difficult to make, plus none evidently come much closer to ancients, but they definitely do point out they can grow more powerful out of this process.

Yo dude, can you help me destroy the world and all life upon it including your own and everyone you care about? I swear it's for your own good.

What do you mean no! How unreasonable!

Ironically, how Venat would've sounded to the ancients.

[Theodric]

Yep. Were it not for Zodiark, there would not even be an Etheirys to speak of. That goes for both the Unsundered and Sundered Etheirys.

[nighttimebunny]

Emet hinted many times at wanting us to join him. He tested us with the Light and we failed so he tossed us aside because we weren't worthy to work with him.

[redheadturk]

Metaphysical sophistry about souls notwithstanding, that is exactly how Rejoinings work.



It's been acknowledged and the story portrays it as a necessary evil. Shouldn't need to be repeated ad nauseam.

More pointedly Venat's main objection was that the Ancients were willing to sacrifice themselves and new life, and the infinite possibility that comes with the future, for the sake of a past that never was and never will be. The "perfect paradise, free from sorrow" the Ancients wanted back never existed to begin with; they were just looking back with rose-tinted glasses (seems to be a worrying issue with Ancients in general) and unwilling (or perhaps unable) to cope with traumatic loss because their relatively carefree lives of peace and contentment were upset for the first time anyone could remember. More pertinently, Zodiark was an irresistible temptation to achieve that rose-tinted "perfect" past because with enough input he could actually make that... but would the cost be worth the sacrifice? And I'm not talking about aether.

I again point out that it was traumatized people she was dealing with when she put that question to them. Traumatized people are not going to be sensible or logical until they have had time to regather their wits about them. Besides, yes, it would have been worth the sacrifice of non sentient] life in order to return those sacrificed so the people could have their loved ones back again. Which I am fairly sure is what they initially had in mind before going through twelve thousand years of utter emotional and mental torment.

Were the ancients perfect? Of course not. But there had not been a war, nor want or hunger, for centuries. Which civilization among the sundered can say that?

[Denishia]

We don't know if the life that would have been sacrificed that third time to reverse the first two sacrifices were non-sentient or not. Considering that the Ascians later on with the Rejoining plans have no qualms sacrificing the sentient Sundered life, it's not a stretch to assume that they were. The reversal of XIV's theme about how the Final Days Ancients and later Ascians are willing to sacrifice those that will walk after for those that walked before.

[redheadturk]

By that time they had suffered twelve thousand years of unimaginable mental and emotional torment. That changes a man.

[Cleretic]

We don't know if the life that would have been sacrificed that third time to reverse the first two sacrifices were non-sentient or not. Considering that the Ascians later on with the Rejoining plans have no qualms sacrificing the sentient Sundered life, it's not a stretch to assume that they were. The reversal of XIV's theme about how the Final Days Ancients and later Ascians are willing to sacrifice those that will walk after for those that walked before.

We can reason that it was a significant and troubling sacrifice even if it wasn't of sentient lives. Not only does the story not really play right if it's not (it makes the Convocation look real stupid for not doing that the first time, and makes Venat look ridiculous for going to extremes to stop the less dangerous plan), but what we know now about the task put forward for it suggests an extremely huge amount of aether required; they're essentially looking to relieve the 75% of the population now in Zodiark, that's gonna require a lot of flora and fauna to replace it.

By that time they had suffered twelve thousand years of unimaginable mental and emotional torment. That changes a man.

Actually, remember that it's twelve thousand years between the Sundering and now, but that the Ascians have been all-in on the 'bash planets into each other' plan for a VERY long time. We don't know how long ago the first Calamity was--the first Calamity we do know the time of was the Fourth, five thousand years ago--but given how long it takes to build up a Calamity, I think it's reasonable to assume that they weren't exactly being nice about it right out the gates.

[EaraGrace]

I again point out that it was traumatized people she was dealing with when she put that question to them. Traumatized people are not going to be sensible or logical until they have had time to regather their wits about them. Besides, yes, it would have been worth the sacrifice of non sentient] life in order to return those sacrificed so the people could have their loved ones back again. Which I am fairly sure is what they initially had in mind before going through twelve thousand years of utter emotional and mental torment.

Were the ancients perfect? Of course not. But there had not been a war, nor want or hunger, for centuries. Which civilization among the sundered can say that?

Traumatized or not if the Ancients committed to the course they were on then even those that would be born after would be unable to escape the fate they created for them. They gave a will to the star itself, a will capable of eliminating not just mortal threats but the very concept of fear and suffering (as far they knew). They would, in fact, be committing themselves to the same path that those who summoned Ra-La did. Venat herself was the most upset to learn that a world that eliminated suffering begged for death.

And once again, to replace the souls in Zodiark requires you to sacrifice beings with souls. They fully intended to sacrifice living beings with thoughts, feelings and desires all their own, and condemn them to eternity as Zodiark. If you want to argue this is defensible then do so, but don’t pretend the choice was anything else but what it was.

[KariTheFox]

If the ancients needed energy and not souls for thier sacrifice, why bother with sacrificing life at all? Surely there's way more aether tied up in mineral resources then there is in the entire biosphere. Or they could build some kind of dyson web and harvest all the celestial aether.

If the concern was to really get enough energy, and not trade souls for souls, then sacrificing the world's flora and fauna is the least efficent way of going about it.