When are we supposed to stop fighting?

[Jandor]

It’s up to subjective tastes i suppose, but for me personally, i see that if you need to rely on higher up people to assist you in things, that shows you’re less resilient than they may be, especially in this situation, as if it weren’t for them we wouldn’t have succeeded in the first place whereas on the other hand they seemed to have been well off without us.

The planet was laid to waste by one of their own creations, and the in-fighting afterwards led to their extinction. That doesn't exactly seem well off to me.

Neither Meteion, nor the final days, nor the sacrifices, nor the sundering, were the fault of the sundered. They did all that on their own.

[KizuyaKatogami]

The planet was laid to waste by one of their own creations, and the in-fighting afterwards led to their extinction. That doesn't exactly seem well off to me.

Neither Meteion, nor the final days, nor the sacrifices, nor the sundering, were the fault of the sundered. They did all that on their own.

They lived whats presumed to be thousands of years without any problems. Actually, it seems to be that sundering involvement led to their extinction considering all the time shenanigans.

[Jandor]

They lived whats presumed to be thousands of years without any problems. Actually, it seems to be that sundering involvement led to their extinction considering all the time shenanigans.

They really made up for lost time with Meteion.

[KizuyaKatogami]

They really made up for lost time with Meteion.

Not sure what your point is here at all lol. In the end it was Venat that brought them to extinction. Not necessarily Meteion.

[Jandor]

Not sure what your point is here at all lol. In the end it was Venat that brought them to extinction. Not necessarily Meteion.

You seem to want to pat them on the back for going thousands of years without a major disaster (that we know of,) but given the ridiculous scale of the disaster they did cause, I'm not sure they deserve it.

And yes, Venat did wipe the Ancients out, as a result of Hermes trying to wipe the Ancients out, so I'm not sure how you've arrived at the conclusion that they'd be fine. First disaster in thousands of years by your estimation, and they totally blew it.

[KizuyaKatogami]

You seem to want to pat them on the back for going thousands of years without a major disaster (that we know of,) but given the ridiculous scale of the disaster they did cause, I'm not sure they deserve it.

And yes, Venat did wipe the Ancients out, as a result of Hermes trying to wipe the Ancients out, so I'm not sure how you've arrived at the conclusion that they'd be fine. First disaster in thousands of years by your estimation, and they totally blew it.

This is the thing though, the sundered are just as capable of creating horrific events. Look at Sildih. Look at mhach. If we want to talk about deserving then in that case no one does. In their defense, they made it through the disaster. Don’t see how that’s totally blowing it. The sundered couldn’t even handle the 8Uc either, so that point doesn’t mesh well at all. By this logic everyone sucks, no one would’ve survived anything so they deserve to be condemned.

[AlysanneVrannai]

Not sure what your point is here at all lol. In the end it was Venat that brought them to extinction. Not necessarily Meteion.

The main theme of the story is that the Ancients were willing to completely ignore the problem instead of solving the root cause, leaving it to fester. Venat made an omelette out of cracked eggs, the other option was to continually commit mass sacrifices to feed a god that can delay the inevitable death of their world. Nothing hints that the ancient society would ever face the Endsinger/Meteion and come out on top eventually. Of course, a counter-argument is that nothing says they would not eventually face Meteion; This argument however falls a bit flat to me since it completely ignores the context and theme of the story, where the story very heavily condemns the Amaurotine way of thinking as decadent, haughty and naive. They would leave the universe to its eventual death just to buy whoever knows how many more thousands of years of their society instead of taking direct action to address the very attitude that lead them to where they are (which Venat did).

[Veloran]

They would leave the universe to its eventual death just to buy whoever knows how many more thousands of years of their society instead of taking direct action to address the very attitude that lead them to where they are (which Venat did).

Venat relied on the Zodiark plan for 12,000 years without ever even having told anybody about the threat or so much as implied that the universe might be in danger.

[tokinokanatae]

One of the assertions I find the most interesting about the ultimate fate of the Ancients is the idea of the game trying to show us that they were spoiled.

I remember when Shadowbringers first came out and all we had was Amaurot as a depiction of their lives, people wanted to say that they brought their deaths upon themselves because their "creation magic was obviously a drain on the planet", even though the game specifically goes out of its way to point out that all creation done by them is through internal reserves of aether.

When we got the side stories that gave us even more glimpses into the internal workings of their society, suddenly everything shifted. Now, rather than being an unnatural drain on the planet, the line against them was that they were too obsessed with upholding the natural order, which is, of course, why they deserved to be wiped out.

Finally, with Elpis showing us the widest picture yet, we're back to yet another reason why they deserved to die: they're spoiled (even though they talk amongst themselves when they're facing emotional problems?), decadent (????) and weak (all four of the Unsundered we know spent 12000 years in the single-minded pursuit of what they thought would save their world).

I'll be blunt. There is no reason the Ancients deserved to die. The fact that they did is a tragedy and not one they brought on by doing any one thing. It's a lying comfort to pretend tragedy only visits those people and societies that deserve it.

[AlysanneVrannai]

Venat relied on the Zodiark plan for 12,000 years without ever even having told anybody about the threat or so much as implied that the universe might be in danger.

Relying on the Zodiark plan to actually prepare a counterattack vs relying on Zodiark creating the "perfect" safe haven and just ignoring the calamity are two very different things. She also absolutely talked about an alternative in the post-Elpis cutscene. Its not like she went straight for sundering without trying to steer people to what she thought a better course.