*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[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?