In regards to something involving the main cast

[MikkoAkure]

I think that's rather disingenuous framing given the numerous side quests showing that many of the Ancients throughout Elpis cared for their creations. Even in cases where Ancients believed the player character was little more than a familiar there's multiple examples of Ancients expressing concern about the player character's aether and even offering to fortify it.

And as I've said repeatedly, there's others who don't care like the Ancient who pits us against his concepts over and over to test them and says nothing of their deaths except "interesting" and cheers against us, expecting us to die against his latest monster.

Despite how much they all try to be the same and hide their differences behind masks and robes, the Ancients are not cut from the same cloth and are not a monolith. Just because some of them have a funeral for dead concepts doesn't mean their society as a whole is absolved of anything bad they've done and it's not like it matters either. The Ancients as a whole are interesting, but they don't need to be "pure" in order for you to like them. The Ancients are not the perfect people others pretend they are and they were not written to be that way either. The fact the writers named their city and a character from a 500 year old book about a falsely idyllic paradise says as much.

I think the thing that's the most telling in all of this is that no one here cared about familiars either until Y'shtola created 2 of them and sent them to the Void. The nixies are no different from carbuncles. Both are familiars, both are made out of nothing but aether, both can be dismissed and turn into nothingness. I wonder if you guys would still be upset if she sent carbuncles into the void since they're familiars that we're more familiar with and used to seeing being sent into combat.

[sidurgu-12]

despite how much they all try to be the same and hide their differences behind masks and robes, the Ancients are not cut from the same cloth and are not a monolith. Just because some of them have a funeral for dead concepts doesn't mean their society as a whole is absolved of anything bad they've done and it's not like it matters either.

and this is why i love the ancients. despite having a society that's hyper focused on hiding individualism and embracing the journey to perfection they are ultimately flawed and human individuals.

[Rulakir]

The argument isn't that the Ancients were perfect so much as they didn't deserve to have some deluded nutter waltz in, inflict genocide upon them, declare herself to be a 'supreme deity' and then try to stifle all memory of their existence.

I think the thing that's the most telling in all of this is that no one here cared about familiars either until Y'shtola created 2 of them and sent them to the Void. The nixies are no different from carbuncles. Both are familiars, both are made out of nothing but aether, both can be dismissed and turn into nothingness. I wonder if you guys would still be upset if she sent carbuncles into the void since they're familiars that we're more familiar with and used to seeing being sent into combat.

I never cared about the nixies, I cared about the hypocrisy. What you just described is every Ancient creation, so I'm glad we can finally agree. I don't understand why this was ever a debate.

[MikkoAkure]

The argument isn't that the Ancients were perfect so much as they didn't deserve to have some deluded nutter waltz in, inflict genocide upon them, declare herself to be a 'supreme deity' and then try to stifle all memory of their existence.

The Ancients didn't deserve it, but it's not as though Venat and Hermes were outside forces either. They didn't just "waltz in". They were both Ancients and products of the society in different ways. Venat's adventuring gave her a different point of view from the rest of her society and it's likely Azem was the same, even if she did not reach the same conclusions. But they both chaffed at the norms and questioned the heart of their culture. Hermes cared too much in an apathetic world and then went crazy after his creations that he programmed poorly gave him news he didn't want to hear and decided that he should test the world and end it all. Hopefully we get some sort of Tales from the Dawn or something that will go deeper into their reasons why they did what they did. There's no doubt that we'll have one from Venat's point of view.

I don't recall Hydaelyn referring to herself as a "supreme deity" but the Ascians sure had things to say about their own Dark Lord and Savior, Zodiark and about how great He is and how he will plunge the world into Darkness.

I never cared about the nixies, I cared about the hypocrisy. What you just described is every Ancient creation, so I'm glad we can finally agree. I don't understand why this was ever a debate.

You haven't been paying attention to anything at all then.

Ancient Concepts/Creation magic - Can be anything from clothing, to cities, to creatures.

Concepts at Elpis - Flesh and blood creatures designed to become part of the ecosystem and even perhaps gain souls and become an integral part of the Lifestream and the circle of life. When these die in Elpis, they still remain as corpses as normal animals would.

Familiars - Both in the Ancient and modern days, beings created of pure aether and can be dismissed into aether. They are created for a specific task.


The heart at the debate is whether Y'shtola sending nixies into the Void is comparable to the Ancients' treatment of their concepts at Elpis and I say "no" because they're two different things. Familiars are not alive in the same way. They have a task embedded into their existence that shapes their entire reason for being. They do not have real bodies either. Nixies are water, porxies are clay (as one amaro found out when attempting to eat one), and carbuncles are a matrix of aether around a stone. A sidequest in Elpis even mentions that they're usually "fed" aether, not real food. Y'shtola's nixies don't even die, she dismisses them as one would dismiss a carbuncle.

[kaynide]

You haven't been paying attention to anything at all then.

Ancient Concepts/Creation magic - Can be anything from clothing, to cities, to creatures.

Concepts at Elpis - Flesh and blood creatures designed to become part of the ecosystem and even perhaps gain souls and become an integral part of the Lifestream and the circle of life. When these die in Elpis, they still remain as corpses as normal animals would.

Familiars - Both in the Ancient and modern days, beings created of pure aether and can be dismissed into aether. They are created for a specific task.

I don't really have a dog in this fight, but food for thought:

I'm not sure if a creature being flesh and blood, having a soul or even leaving behind a corpse is necessarily a good indicator on how it should be treated;

For example, the queen porxie needed to be beat into submission, so it clearly has some kind of will of it's own. Or the Poroggos which seem to have varying levels of free will (or at least, Sass).

I would also struggle to categorize summons, because as we saw in the starship liftoff, Garuda was not into what was going on at all..although she was forced to do it.