Quote Originally Posted by Lauront View Post
The objection only comes up initially with Hythlodaeus's shade, and it's not until Anamnesis Anyder that we get the underlying motivation behind their position. Her arguments are clearly articulated with sacrifices with a specific aim in mind and which she labels bad for a specific reason, i.e. because they are (according to her) a sign of weakness (again, she even grants that the Convocation in enacting this wish is doing so out of a desire to safeguard the star's future well-being...), and why? Because she sees it as them not accepting their tragedy. This is all with Meteion's report on the fate that met a society which did away with suffering in mind. I wouldn't say she is on board with restoring their society. She is exhorting them to incorporate their lessons from the tragedy and to accept suffering as a constant companion.

The dialogue bears this out:



While I don't see an issue with people speculating that they may have had some moral reasoning attached to this (I certainly don't see it and I don't think we can even arrive at such a conclusion without knowing what was being sacrificed), all the texts where her or her group outline their motives do so with recourse to this ultimate aim, i.e. avoid their eventual doom.
i think it's also good to point out that while ancients may have temporarily not suffered that suffering still existed on the star. the (sq)grapes azem supposedly saved was actually done to save the people living on the island which implies both sentient and sapient non-ancients clearly existed on the star at that point. it's isn't far fetched to then postulate that the lack of suffering the ancients claim to have experienced was no more than just them off-loading their own personal suffering on those they viewed as lesser beings.