*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[EaraGrace]

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.

Let me first point out the fallacy of saying that a story’s writing is relying on contrivances, but only when it prevents your preferred direction from being taken. Pointing out that they’re are problems with Ancient society, they’re obsession with only perfection and their willingness to sacrifice whatever it would take to birth a world without fear or suffering, even eschewing morals to do so, is not contrivance. It’s a logical and thematically appropriate failing.

And forgive me, but if I’m reading you right I think you’ve missed the point of Dead Ends and the message of Ultima Thule. Etheirys will eventually die. All things will eventually die. It was that revelation that broke the Ea. The point Venat makes, the point of the Sundering and defeating Meteion, was that even with the inevitability of the end, you should fight for tomorrow. That even if only for another day, people will be able to live, find beauty in world, hear, feel, and think. And that that is worth fighting for. If the Ancients knew that there was nothing they could do to stave off the end, that no sacrifice would halt it, they would break. The Ea did, the Omicron did, the dragons did, advanced civilization after advanced civilization did. To believe that the Ancients, possessing the flaws they were, would be different for no reason other than saying they are somehow special, is foolish. Only a civilization that accepts the inevitability of suffering, that looks with both eyes at the inevitability of the end, and still can find joy and happiness, will not. And even then only for a time.

I think it should also be noted that ensouled does not necessarily equal sentient in this context. Some carnivorous plants may be ensouled, but I would certainly never believe they were sentient. lol. People, and familiars with the ability to speak and possessing of self awareness, those are sentient.

This seems arbitrary. Why wouldn’t a carnivorous plant capable of being bestowed a soul, a soul that will carry memories and experiences no less than a humans, be unworthy of consideration?