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

[Sicno]

Well.. that's the problem. In the quest "The Greatest Contribution" Emet states that in the Fourteen, there's no one who specializes in the Celestial. That means the previous Fandaniel has no knowledge or skill in aetherology or dynamis like Hermes does. In that regard, the previous Fandaniel would not have been able to forestall the Final Days as they couldn't pinpoint what was causing it. Only Hermes was able to deduce the effects was a result of stagnant aether currents by viewing the aether currents based on his research in the study of aetherology.

So no, the previous Fandaniel wouldn't be able to do anything that the current Fandaniel could have in relation to figuring out how to Forestall the Final Days.

This is only if you go the route of patching up the celestial currents. We've discussed this here before, but among the things we know about calvinball dynamis is that it can't affect aether of a certain density, that's why Meteion couldn't affect the ancients themselves, only their creations and other less dense lifeforms. The correlation with the stagnation of the celestial currents was the only thing they could find in the dark that worked, without knowing the actual cause of the problem.

At the beginning of our visit Hermes commented in the presence of Emet and Hythlodaeus that aether trumps dynamis, that knowledge is already a good starting point in finding solutions if the ancients were even half the scholars and researchers they were depicted as.

It's easy to say Venat can come with an alternate solution

It's not that she needed to find a solution HERSELF, and completely by herself. What we could have expected from her was simply to warn their kind about the situation so that then they could put their collective minds together to work on a solution.

"Oh but they wouldn't have believed her" - Well she has the echo to show things to people. Also remember she gave us a crystal with the tracing data on Meteion? She could have shown that to others. Also Emet already gave enough merit once to our ludicrous story to deem it worth of investigation because it could concern the safety of the star.

"Oh but Hermes would have opposed her" - And? We have no idea how they handled things like crime, but if the events of Elpis would have been made public I don't see why they wouldn't have forced him to cooperate and share his knowledge, considering their survival was now uncertain.

You are right to say it is a condemnation - but that's because the means to pass the test was beyond the Ancients due to being too stubborn to change their ways and accept that their world wasn't perfect, which was why they failed.


A calamity like this happened to the Eorzea in the present, but rather than be condemned, we looked at it as a way to prove to Meteion that our right to exist is just as valid during our time. For us, we took on all the failures of other stars and still overcame her despair. This is the difference in outlook to the question "What gives meaning to life?"

The "test" didn't even matter. The sundered didn't behave better than the ancients. Just look around everywhere in the world, all the atrocities perpetrated, the lack of regard for others' lives, all the wars, the genocide, the subjugation, etc. (all things our dearest "Mother" allowed to happen btw) and in the end the real reason we were able to reach Meteion and defeat her was because we just happened to have the one time traveler who was there when things went to hell and who deigned to share their findings. Only THEN someone could do something about it. Wow, an incredible "test", 10000% the sundered are better than the ancients.