What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[EaraGrace]

The flower may not change all the time and only be affected by strong enough emotions. But what I'm saying is: the ancients are aware that the flower reacts to emotionS. Plural. In order to observe such a behavior it must have reacted to something else. Not just "default white - black when Hermes is brooding." They speak about changes in hue and vibrancy. They're describing a spectrum. How can they claim that if they only ever saw it change for 1 person and 1 emotional state?

We learn that tidbit from Hermes, when asking the other researchers all struggle to comprehend how Meteion even works. In fact we knew more about Dynamis and the flowers then they did.

And that's why I told you about "creative solutions". They didn't need to go and fight Meteion as we did. Dynamis is an energy. They could have chugged on that same dynamis and make her dry on it so she's less powerful (think of Eureka, for example, and how the original plan was to reverse the flow of aether so the primal was cut short of it until it was completely dry). They could use that energy to create something or power up something.

I guess I’m just a skeptic.

Or another idea: how about instead of making a shield around the planet they just went and make an aether prison encasing Meteion? Remember, dynamis gets drowned by aether because it's far weaker (Hermes says so himself). Sure, Meteion had a head start towards the end of the universe, but like I said, she's a mere pet project, made by Hermes alone in his spare time. A whole team seriously devoted to the study of dynamis could have come up with more efficient ways to use it and create better, more efficient entities and devices to catch up with her before she became too powerful or have exploited the fact that aether > dynamis anyway.

It’s only drowned out because aether is more common in Etheirys. Dynamis however is more common than aether and thus such a solution wouldn’t work. And any plan would have to contend with the inability to reach her. Remember, it took millennia for Hydaelyn to collect the Aether necessary to reach Ultima. Any plan would be facing her at that strength.

[Sicno]

We learn that tidbit from Hermes, when asking the other researchers all struggle to comprehend how Meteion even works. In fact we knew more about Dynamis and the flowers then they did.

We were arguing whether the flowers would react to them, not if they knew about how to manipulate them to get a desired color. Dynamis knowledge is not a requirement for having emotions. As for the topic of knowledge of dynamis manipulation by the ancients in general, Hermes says that it's "a truly esoteric thing, known to but a select few scholars". There were more people who know about it. We just may not find them inside Elpis, which remember, it was only a research facility. What we saw wasn't the entire ancient world but a tiny fraction.

It’s only drowned out because aether is more common in Etheirys. Dynamis however is more common than aether and thus such a solution wouldn’t work.

Yes, they say there's more dynamis than aether in the universe, but do they explicitly state anywhere that this is the reason for aether prevailing? Or is it just a supposition? Now I'm the skeptic. Even with all the dynamis available in the universe Meteion couldn't get past Zodiark's barrier which used only the aether present in Etheirys. If it was a mere matter of quantity she would have broken that barrier long ago, especially when the Source was only a 1/14th fraction.

And any plan would have to contend with the inability to reach her. Remember, it took millennia for Hydaelyn to collect the Aether necessary to reach Ultima. Any plan would be facing her at that strength.

And that's why I keep bringing the point that they could have engineered better, more efficient entelechies than her in every aspect. Our spaceship did require ridiculous amounts of aether but it seems that just using aether for such a travel is inefficient. It took the Meteion sisters mere days to scout the entire universe. This was an entelechy made by a single guy during his lunch breaks. There would be no "inability to reach her" if they had devoted seriously to a solution. If only someone would have warned them so they could implement such a solution.

Edit: Even bloody Zenos was able to reach Ultima Thule using leftovers from the mothercrystal, which shouldn't be that much aether in total. It didn't take him that long either.