*Spoilers* Anyone feel joining Emet would have been better

[Lauront]

Emet-Selch: 'Once the rejoining of worlds is complete, Zodiark will regain His full strength and shatter his prison. Then we shall offer up the Source's remaining inhabitants in sacrifice, that we might resurrect our brethren who died to bring Zodiark into existence.'

You're claiming that the Ascians went from 'Let's think about sacrificing all the non-Amaurotians on the star' to 'Let's sacrifice the souls of all the non-Amaurotians left on the star'. That's fine, but that transition itself shows why they shouldn't have the power to make that decision in the first place. Emet is still Emet, and his arguments for eradicating humanity are still predicated on the belief that his friends lives are more valuable than your own. There's no 'responsible use of soul sacrifice to bring back loved ones' here. Just don't do it.

To be precise, non-ancients, albeit it is unclear because every single source on it is deliberately vague beyond the possession of souls. I am not arguing that that stage was necessarily a good idea. I don't know what was involved in that stage of sacrifices (i.e. what type of beings) or how they'd modify their plan if they were given the full truth as to what Hermes had learnt via Meteion. Their society was originally divided on this plan, which we know from the Sources I posted. We also can see very clearly from the Elpis sidequests that the ancients are quite readily open to modifying their practices where they see the merit in it. What I am disputing is that the plan, based on the knowledge they had, was idiotic, especially given that those souls inside Zodiark would be unable to return to the star, something the ancients valued - this may well explain the emotional gravity to it. Furthermore, he had to be maintained to avoid a repeat as far as they knew, thus the exchange of unspecified life. Venat's entire plan is dependent on stages 1 and 2 of the sacrifices completing, and she only knows 3 may end poorly because of what Meteion's report says of what we now know to be the Plenty. So I am open to the view that that stage is a bad idea, but not so much persuaded by the idea that they couldn't have been persuaded to re-think the plan if they were given more context...