*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[Veloran]

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.

What he wanted was for WoL to prove worthy of inheriting the Ancient's legacy so the future could be laid in their hands.

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.

In order for that to be the case they would have had to intentionally create sapient life in the second sacrifice to Zodiark, given that if any had existed beforehand it would have been wiped out by that point.

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.

75% of the population of Amaurot. The plan wasn't to bring back everybody that died during the Final Days, it was to bring back those survivors that had sacrificed themselves to Zodiark.

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.

Why do many creatures, such as Sin Eaters for example, feed specifically on living aether? We're never told Eaters consume souls, just living aether - We can presume that this type of aether is somehow different or of exceeding potency in some way.

[KariTheFox]

Why do many creatures, such as Sin Eaters for example, feed specifically on living aether? We're never told Eaters consume souls, just living aether - We can presume that this type of aether is somehow different or of exceeding potency in some way.

That's a pretty big presumption in search of a conclusion (that the ancients were totally just going to sacrifice some animals and plants, so it's no big deal.) Couldn't it be the case that creatures like Sin Eaters are feeding on the aether of living things because it is easier to get at the aether in a living being, since you can kill them and simply release the aether that way? A lot harder to kill and eat a crystal unless your biology is specifically set up to do that.

(Also with Sin Eaters specifically, I don't even think they're 'eating'. Their nature as umbrally aspected creatures of light makes me doubt they need sustenance or have a metabolism of any kind. What they are doing is making more life that is like themselves, reproducing, after a fashion.)