When are we supposed to stop fighting?

[EaraGrace]

People keep repeating that line, but we need to actually use context for it. Compared to the mass suffering and horrible circumstances they were facing, their world before it occurred truly was a perfect paradise compared to what they had experienced. It’s subjective as to how each player will take it but that’s how i’ve taken it since i first read it. It goes along with the whole, you never really cherish something until it’s gone, kind of along the lines of that. It’s a comparison.I really don’t think you can jump to a conclusion that the suffering was minor. Especially given the side quests. We also don’t even know about the other societies so to say that and jump to that conclusion is a bit much.

Something to note about the elpis flowers btw, is that they cant easily be affected by aetheric density from what we're told. Its not really to do with them not having a range of emotions.

I think that’s the question at play though. If it truly was a paradise, even comparatively, then we must also recognize that their suffering was lessened as well, no?

[Necrotica]

Suffering is entirely relative though. A person who has never experienced pain (small children) will react loudly and dramatically when first feeling it. An adult exposed to that same pain will wince and move on.

I guess the question is, how much suffering is the right amount per Venat's grand plan? Seems like she overshot just a bit with the sundering. Maybe 14 way split was too much. 7 might have been better. Of course she may have only spit it 14 ways because we went back in time and told her she split it 14 ways because we went back in time and told her she split it 14 ways because we went back in time and told-AD INFINUM BAD TIME TRAVEL WRITING.

ANYWHO. Venat was still an Ancient. They could have policed her much earlier on. A red flag was when she left the convocation but did not return to the star as tradition held. Not gonna bash someone for not buying into the suicide cult mentality, but it definitely shows a certain level of arrogance. Is there any point at all in the story where Venat/Hydaelyn recognizes she is wrong about anything?

I am realizing it is unfair to view Venat as an outsider to the Ancients that brought about their doom. She was one of them. They brought about their own end because they feared one of their own creation so much. Poetic.

[Theodric]

Is there any point at all in the story where Venat/Hydaelyn recognizes she is wrong about anything?

In fairness to Venat, she did proclaim that there was no kindness or justice in the tragedy that she wrought. The Sundered stand to benefit indirectly from Venat's actions but their reaction felt rather muted given that their existence came as a result of the genocide of the Ancients as a whole.

[Cleretic]

ANYWHO. Venat was still an Ancient. They could have policed her much earlier on. A red flag was when she left the convocation but did not return to the star as tradition held. Not gonna bash someone for not buying into the suicide cult mentality, but it definitely shows a certain level of arrogance. Is there any point at all in the story where Venat/Hydaelyn recognizes she is wrong about anything?

The Ancients approached death like a more dramatic version of retirement; when you're finished with your work, you die.

What Venat did wasn't wrong or arrogant, she just didn't feel like her work was done just because she found her role as Azem was done. It's similar to a leader of a country going on to helm a not-for-profit or something rather than just retiring (which I mention off-hand because one of Australia's Prime Ministers did that); it's atypical, but it's not wrong, not everyone feels that their work is done because they reached the top.

We don't really know what led Venat to making that decision, just that she found a rather different destiny. Knowing what we do about Venat, though, it's unlikely her decision was made out of arrogance or selfishness.

[Lyth]

...

Pain and suffering are simply a part of life. The society in which the Amaurotians lived in were not free of them either. Hermes was the most obvious example, but we also witnessed Eric express his sorrow over the loss of his mother and anger towards his father's conduct. We also know that the Final Days is reliant on the ambient emotion to work. If the Ancients were truly a society free from such things, the original initiating outbreak event never would have occurred in the first place.

We know precious little of what Amaurotian society was actually like outside of how they wanted to portray themselves. Every powerful nation invariably thinks that it's the greatest civilization that ever was, so we're not exactly treading new ground here. A third party perspective would be very helpful with this, especially from the nations on other continents. I'll have a good laugh if they pull out the classic Esthar city move, with futuristic cities equipped with dynamis-powered cloaking technology over in the New World. 'Oh, that lot? They're just a bunch of primiti- eh?' 'Oh, don't mind us, we're just the caretakers of the galaxy.'

But even in the absence of that perspective, the more that we get to know the Amaurotians, the more that they seem to simply be just another group of people who just happened to have a lot of magical power. Without that silver spoon and the comforts that came with it, there was no place to hide away their undesirable and unwanted feelings. And that's not a bad thing. Being able to address your feelings around setbacks and work through them is just a part of growing up.

'...But do not avert your eyes. See your life for what it is.'

[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.

[KizuyaKatogami]

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).

Except they didn’t ignore the root cause, they just didn’t know what it was. Venat had the knowledge of it, she could have told them.Had she told them perhaps they could be able to face against Meteion and come out on top, Venat never gave them the chance so we may never know. Venat ran away from telling them the truth and lost hope in her people, the very thing she says not to do she did.

[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.

[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.