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

[Atelier-Bagur]

No offence, but are we even playing the same story? Summoning Zodiark is integral to her plan...

Youre ignoring my question. If she didnt sunder the world and only Zodiark was around what wouldve that helped the star?

[KizuyaKatogami]

Youre ignoring my question. If she didnt sunder the world and only Zodiark was around what wouldve that helped the star?

First of all, what do you mean Zodiark consuming more souls to preserve himself? Shadowbringers and Endwalker both ended that unsupported idea that he was some blood god that continuously ate souls. Disregarding that though, if she didn’t sunder the world and instead told them the truth of everything, they might’ve not even needed to summon Zodiark in the first place. We know the ancients can create beings capable of manipulating Dynamis. They had a facility they could use to learn the way of manipulating it themselves. There are numerous options given to us.Let’s not forget btw, her/Hydaelyn is the actual primal that wholly consumed souls until there was nothing left. At least the souls were still there inside Zodiark.

[PawPaw]

Youre ignoring my question. If she didnt sunder the world and only Zodiark was around what wouldve that helped the star?

I'm confused by your question, to be honest. Zodiark was created because the Ancients didn't know what else to do to combat what was happening to them. Do you mean what would have happened if Venat had allowed the Convocation to do their third proposed sacrifice to bring back their loved ones? That's a different question. Because the issue that I think most people here have is that Venat knew exactly how to combat Meteion, how to track Meteion and that Meteion was coming to kill her people and she did and said nothing to warn them or afford them an opportunity to find a way other than Zodiark.

Effectively, the Ancients solved their own problem even without knowing what was actually causing it. Zodiark's shield holds well into our time 12 thousand years into the future and this is after he's been split into 14 parts. There's no reason to believe it wouldn't have held for as long as they needed it to. Zodiark, the flawed solution to a desperate problem, is helping the star by being the only thing keeping the world alive and the only reason the WoL draws breath. And he was not created thanks to Venat, she just used him as she uses everything and everyone for her own means.

[Lauront]

Youre ignoring my question. If she didnt sunder the world and only Zodiark was around what wouldve that helped the star?

Because your question is predicated on a completely flawed understanding of the story. Venat did not prevent Zodiark from being summoned, nor did she intend this to be the case, because her entire plan relies on it.

To answer the correct question: could they have avoided a fate like the Plenty had they not been sundered and driven back Meteion?

My view is yes.

Notice how the Q&A is worded:

Q: Venat had good intentions and her plan worked out in the end. But as a result the world was Sundered and most of the Ancients suffered. Was Sundering the star really the only way to save it? A: This is a question that I consulted with Nacchan (Natsuko Ishikawa, Scenario Writer of Endwalker) to come up with the answer so it will make sense when we explain it. At the very least, as Y’shtola theorizes, Venat believed that the Ancients, being so dense in Aether, could not control Dynamis. So she thought they could not have stopped the Final Days and its source. So you know there were other Ancients who thought summoning Zodiark would solve everything but she saw that summoning Zodiark and using it to deflect Meteion’s “Despair Beam” and thought, “even if we were to do this and keep going as we are the rest of the Ancients will probably be unable to change as a people” when she’s looking at Hermes, or “we will always be our own undoing”. If you look at the dungeon, “The Dead Ends”, at the very end there’s a boss called Ra-la, and that’s sort of our vision for what probably would have happened to the Ancients if we just let them continue as they were. So for that reason, she chose to Sunder the star to dilute mankind’s Aether so that someday they might be able to use Dynamis and to fight back against despair and the Final Days at the Source.

The idea here is that she did not believe her people could or would change. She does not share the knowledge of the causes of the Final Days with them. We know from the scene with the Watcher (her construct) on the moon that the cause of the Final Days was unknown to the ancients, and by all accounts, even her close circle - certainly the Watcher did not know this. She never specifically says she will tell her followers. Instead, she says this:

Venat: In spite of this, we cannot allow the report that set this calamity in motion to become common knowledge. Were the masses to learn the fates of the other stars, I fear the situation would spiral out of our control.
Venat: I must carefully consider who can be trusted, and bring them into the fold.
Venat: Ordinarily, I wouldn't hesitate to call upon the Fourteen. However, it was the desire for a fair determination that drove Hermes to attempt to erase our memories; were he made aware of his actions, there is no telling whether he would remain a friend or become a foe.
Venat: Alternately, we might try to alienate him from the Convocation. Yet in doing so, we would deprive ourselves of a brilliant mind who would be invaluable in the crises to come.
Venat: Quite the dilemma... Which is why I must work independently of the Convocation.
Venat: Regardless of how we proceed, if we are to permanently avert the Final Days, we must be equal to Hermes's challenge. We must prove that mankind is worthy to exist.

So it is all predicated on beliefs - and on that basis, they give the answer that if the ancients did not change, their potential fate was that of the Plenty, which the story wasn't exactly subtle about when showing that caricature world. Fine, but it's all down to her beliefs and the fact that she did not share the actual facts with her people. As others have noted, her purported reasoning, i.e. how Hermes might react, is weak - the Watcher in particular credits multiple scholars with coming up with Zodiark, not just him. Lahabrea, for example, is an expert in complex creation magicks, and by the Watcher's account we know there's other experts in celestial currents - besides, they could've waited until after Zodiark, since her plan was to piggyback off him anyway. As things stand, the sundering was a very messy solution, and because Zodiark was so potent, she had to sunder more than she originally intended - plus she allowed Emet-Selch an escape route which she knew from your recollection would likely lead to him and any other Ascians going down the route of the rejoinings. And she still deigned to tell them nothing.

Had she given her people concrete answers, which as per others the ancients had the means to verify and investigate further, given that their predominant concern (as per Emet-Selch via Hyth's shade, and Venat's own words in Anamnesis) was the well-being and future of their star, do I think they could've come up with a solution? Absolutely, yes. Unfortunately, they were not given that option. My view is they may well have decided to defer restoring those ancients inside Zodiark given that knowledge, spent their time finding a way to drive back Meteion (the story hints at several workaround methods they had to manipulate dynamis, which other posters brought up; this could include selectively sundering a few ancients if nothing else worked, but not the entire star or their entire race, without their consent), and consider whether they had to make societal adjustments in light of what was learnt on the Plenty. Possibly taking up the cause of seeding new life on the worlds Meteion had attempted to kill off, or at the least any newly formed ones/unaffected ones. Her potentially half-hearted "beliefs" aren't good enough for me here.

As an aside, given that reincarnation is a thing in the setting, those souls on the Plenty would eventually yield new life anyway and see that star seeded with new life... were it not for Meteion trying to destroy everything in existence.

BTW it is very much the case that her summoning consumes her summoners' souls:

Q: Venat said that not even her soul would remain but what does that mean? I’m very fond of her character and would like to see her again. A: The answer is that souls are also made of Aether, and she gives up so much Aether that includes all of her soul as well. By contrast Zodiark was summoned using sacrifices of a lot of people, yes? But he was able to only use their Aether aside from their souls up because Zodiark was really strong and summoned by the Convocation of the Fourteen and so on. Hydaelyn had a much weaker summoning and because of that she didn’t have the option to leave the souls untouched, and that includes Venat she ended up using all of her Aether. In 5.2 there was some discussion of Venat’s group that assisted her in doing this and also how much of the Ancient people were sacrificed to create Zodiark so if you look back at that time it might be of your interest now. At the very end, Hydaelyn still had her own soul, which is Venat’s. That was the very power that she used to fight the Warrior of Light. When she tells you before the final bout she had saved enough Aether specifically to fight you, and that specifically points to Venat’s soul.

The Anamnesis scene does not give the indication that they knew this:



Why would they have any expectation of missing her if they thought they'd be consumed in the process, or end up being sundered as well?

I'm confused by your question, to be honest. Zodiark was created because the Ancients didn't know what else to do to combat what was happening to them. Do you mean what would have happened if Venat had allowed the Convocation to do their third proposed sacrifice to bring back their loved ones? That's a different question. Because the issue that I think most people here have is that Venat knew exactly how to combat Meteion, how to track Meteion and that Meteion was coming to kill her people and she did and said nothing to warn them or afford them an opportunity to find a way other than Zodiark.

Effectively, the Ancients solved their own problem even without knowing what was actually causing it. Zodiark's shield holds well into our time 12 thousand years into the future and this is after he's been split into 14 parts. There's no reason to believe it wouldn't have held for as long as they needed it to. Zodiark, the flawed solution to a desperate problem, is helping the star by being the only thing keeping the world alive and the only reason the WoL draws breath. And he was not created thanks to Venat, she just used him as she uses everything and everyone for her own means.

Exactly this. Zodiark is never shown to be the blood god thirsty for souls some headcanoned him to be. Their reasons for releasing the souls in him seem to tie to wanting their people back, and possibly because these souls in him would not have the chance to return to the star. Had it all been explained to the ancients, they may well have decided that the third stage of sacrifices should be put off until the threat of Meteion is dealt with.

The Zenos philosophy... he's a fun(ny) character but I don't agree with it even if I understand it (also will be very surprised if he/his avatar is actually dead and doesn't pop up the next patch). Or Venat's, as Brinne laid out. To each their own, however, I think people can do what they want with their lives. People don't need to constantly fight each other like Saiyans to have meaningful lives. Suffering being reduced even if it's not totally eliminated like the Ancients succeeded in is nice and cool. All I wanna do is sip my energy drinks, create sharks with mammaries, and grill with Emet-Selch, for Zodiark's sake. Then Ra-La 5 minutes later, which is sad, I guess? Not my problem.

Ironically, Zenos - Mr survival of the fittest - just offs himself after his first big fight in SB, some 20 odd years into his being, and after doing nothing but inflicting suffering. He only comes back unexpectedly thanks to the Resonance. He later dies with the only thing which gives him meaning in life, the WoL answering his call to fight, potentially (depending on reactions) completely rejecting him and treating him as a pest, leaving him to die there on the universe's edge. But the ancients choosing when to return to the star, presumably several thousands of years into their lifespan, after they felt they met their purpose, to re-connect with the star and allow their soul to reincarnate, is a bad thing.

The ancients returning to the star didn't value life less than a knight of Ishgard or warrior of Azim Steppe going to battle knowing full well they can die there. All and none are lives thrown away.

^This. Coupled with the fact that the star was sparing in what it granted souls to, and given that they were the only sapient life on the star we know of, their creations constituting mostly animal/plant life and predominantly soulless arcane entities/familiars, the whole approach made sense. Maybe they'd extend the point this occurred at once they began plumbing the mysteries of the universe (if Y'shtola can just shrug off the Ea's despair at what they found, why not the ancients too?), but to me the approach made sense as a way to keep matters somewhat "fresh" in their society and allow for new blood to enter it.

You need a healer for that? On a more serious note, the Ascians and their struggle confirms Venat's philosophy in an ironic way. Emet most of all. After the sundering, he understood the value of the life he lost. Life that the ancients trivially threw away before the calamity. He then struggled for 12,000 years with every fiber of his being to restore what he valued most. He was not stopped till we literally destroyed his very aethereic being. Struggled to the last, because he had learned the lesson of value he had not in the olden days. Ironically he was rewarded for this by having his people remembered and their souls freed from Zodiark at the end.

Emet-Selch understood this after the Final Days, and arguably even before, given his zeal in ensuring the star did not come to harm from Meteion. There was nothing 'trivial' about this for the ancients. They did not take up this option until they felt they had lived out a good life, and it was a personal decision - they didn't force Venat, for example, to return to the star. She was at worst seen as a little eccentric. And some reward, that comes at the cost of your people's total destruction.

I'd say this actually proved the opposite - that her people (Emet-Selch, Elidibus, what was left of Lahabrea) had an awful lot of fight in them if push came to shove, and that was without being sundered.