Quote Originally Posted by Sicno View Post
I think I know the part you're referring to. Meteion says:

"Like me, they feel his pain and turn dark...
That's only for Hermes, though. For others, they're always white and bright."

I honestly don't take that too literally because I find it entirely unlikely that the only emotion ever manifested in the history of the ancients is Hermes's sorrow. It could just be poor phrasing or interpretation during localization. The intention here could have been that even when they change color they remain a bright hue, like blue or green, and that they only go dark for Hermes. In an earlier quest he says:

"Though be it here or elsewhere, they are seldom seen in any hue save purest white..."
"(...) While it has no will of its own, it is sensitive to the prevailing emotion in the vicinity, and reacts by altering its color and vibrancy."

He doesn't say "it reacts to sorrow". He speaks about prevailing emotions, which also checks with what we saw earlier through he MSQ, that it changes to other colors because of different emotions, not just sorrow. So it must have reacted to other emotions too for the ancients. I know this contradicts what I said earlier about literal interpretations after localization, but if they would indeed have only ever reacted to him we could expect a more binary representation. Black or white. Joy or sorrow. Not hint at a spectrum of colors nor to emotions in general.
The issue is that we’re given examples of the Elpis flowers reaction to emotions which show it changing colors dramatically and in a very visible way. And given the fact that the flower existed in Elpis for at least several centuries by that point, based on the convo with Timaios, the fact that none have observed a shift leads me to believe that there’s either two options. Either the Ancients just don’t have emotional moods, which would be ridiculous I agree, or those shifts are being prevented from affecting change in the flower. The latter seems like a better fit, though exactly why Hermes gets through that remains unknown to me. Maybe the depth of emotion? Grief is a powerful one, and the Ancients didn’t exactly seem well versed on how it felt.

Quote Originally Posted by Sicno View Post
The flowers are just an example. They say dynamis is a form of energy, so it follows that it could be used or manipulated in different ways. The flowers just illustrate that having a will is not a requirement to make use of it and all kinds of creative solutions could have arisen. Also, Meteion was a (quite literally) PET PROJECT of Hermes, and he was so careless at it that he even gave her a task that had a possibility of not being fulfilled, something Emet-Selch pointed out mere moments after hearing about it. Imagine what a full team devoted to design something better with the added motivation of preserving their own existances could have achieved.
Problem is dynamis is partly defined by the difficulty you have in interacting with it. As stated before, while we don’t have objective statements on the matter, dynamis has shown to be manipulated only by those with the will and emotions to do so while also being aetherically weak enough to not crowd it out. While I’m sure an experienced group could make entelechies not as susceptible to environmental emotions as Meteion, they’d still need free will and to have a reason to overcome Meteions song. The Scions fought for the those back home and for their friends, would a creation not given a choice in the matter do so?

I’m not gonna say it’s impossible but I just think unlikely given what we’ve been told.