The Ancients still deserved better, after everything

[geekgirl101]

For what I think is the millionth time, has everyone just completely forgotten the Echo and the scene where she explicitly shows us how everyone in her time can view the events of the past by just being in a place where something has happened and reading the environmental aether? Not to mention the many, many witnesses in Elpis who saw all of us together. Not to mention that the Convocation can just look into your own memories to find the truth. Not to mention that she is a respected former Convocation member and not someone that would be brushed aside or ignored. She could have told and shown anyone the truth and they would have been able to see it for themselves. She chose not to.

They saw us but not the events at the top of Ktisis Hyperboreia, and again even if she did take everyone there and showed them the truth there is nothing they could've done to prevent the inevitable from happening. Meteion was already out there preparing her song of oblivion to destroy the world.

[KizuyaKatogami]

They saw us but not the events at the top of Ktisis Hyperboreia, and again even if she did take everyone there and showed them the truth there is nothing they could've done to prevent the inevitable from happening. Meteion was already out there preparing her song of oblivion to destroy the world.

This is literally a game about defying fate, something the scions themselves say but youre going to refute that just....because? In an expansion that talks about never losing hope etc thats literally what youre doing and what venat did. Considering the only reason we won being because of numerous deus ex machina's im not sure why its so crazy to expect equal treatment for the ancients, especially when they had much greater power and creativity.An ancient created meteion, it stands to reason an ancient could create something to subdue her.

[KageTokage]

They saw us but not the events at the top of Ktisis Hyperboreia, and again even if she did take everyone there and showed them the truth there is nothing they could've done to prevent the inevitable from happening. Meteion was already out there preparing her song of oblivion to destroy the world.

Being prepared for disaster would've reasonably made a huge difference.

Zodiark might've not even been necessary if the destruction hadn't progressed to the extent it had by the time they identified how it might be stopped.

For that matter, I'm left scratching my head over what manner of "preparations" Venat had even made considering how things played out.

[PawPaw]

They saw us but not the events at the top of Ktisis Hyperboreia, and again even if she did take everyone there and showed them the truth there is nothing they could've done to prevent the inevitable from happening. Meteion was already out there preparing her song of oblivion to destroy the world.

Many saw the group enter as 5 and leave as 3. They had memories of us as a strange familiar and could have pointed out places we had been seen throughout Elpis. There were numerous places that Emet, Hythlodaeus and the Convocation could have been taken to in order to get an idea of exactly what took place; Like the room in Poiten Oikos where we tell them literally everything for a start. Then Venat could have filled in the blanks since she WAS there for all of KH and knew exactly what had happened. There is no reason why the Convocation couldn't have been told. Hermes was a stupid excuse not to. Panic was a stupid excuse not to. The excuses are about as strong as wet toilet paper. About as intelligent as suggesting that we not share all of the information we gleaned on the moon because it might cause a panic back on the Source.

Blame the writers for introducing a laughable contradiction to their own story minutes before the epic showdown of the zone. And sure, Meteion was out there. So? It's not like we all (including Venat) don't know what Meteion was weak against. All of that information could have been used to pre-emptively prepare for what was coming. If only.

[geekgirl101]

You really don't understand and I don't want to waste any more of my energy arguing with you. Hydaelyn didn't sunder the world for glory and all that stuff. She tried talking to the people and they refused to listen even when the world was being destroyed around them. She tried to rally them to fight back, prove that fear and despair would not win them over and that their will to live was absolute, but they were all too eager to sacrifice themselves to Zodiark and have him fix everything for them. Who's to say that before the Final Days struck that they would've listened to her? She had to prove everything and she had nothing. They were programmed to believe that there was an accident that destroyed Meteion and wiped everyones' memories. Venat may have been able to show them the truth through her gift but would they have really wanted to listen? They weren't so willing to listen to her before even with us at her side and who is to say that the time between our presence on Elpis and the Final Days wasn't a matter of a few days barely giving Venat enough time to convince them that this wasn't just something she invented? And who is to say that once she did prove she was speaking the truth that the first thing they wouldn't have done would've been to summon Zodiark right away? Then the whole thing would've just gone around in circles with Venat telling them they need to not rely on a primal to solve all their problems and then having to become Hydaelyn to prevent more lives being sacrificed and the inevitable doom that would follow several thousand years later when Zodiark's powers would start to weaken.

[PawPaw]

snip

I think we understand quite well. No one is claiming that Venat let her people die for glory. We ask why she did nothing to stop them from dying at all.

Firstly, it really does sound as though you are taking the events in that metaphorical music video to be an actuality which is an interesting choice. She didn't do anything of use or significance to let the people who mattered know what was happening before the Final Days and even if she attempted to speak up after the world had gone to hell, her empty words and platitudes would have meant nothing at that point. The worst had happened and had been averted by the only thing that the Ancients could come up with in the time and with the diminished resources that they had. They were utterly broken and they didn't even know why. Considering they had no idea what was happening to them, they did quite well and were trying to rebuild. Rally them to fight back? That should have happened before Meteion attacked and they should have known what they were fighting back against.

Who is this "they" that wasn't willing to listen to her when we were at their side? Why would anyone other than us be telling our story when we were present? Do you mean when Emet-Selch stormed out of the meeting room but then we see him 5 minutes later where he says that, even if he didn't really believe us, he had a duty to investigate to see if there was merit? That kind of absolute unwillingness to look for the truth? If he was a representation of the mindset of the Convocation then it is quite clear that they would have gone to the full lengths to discover all of the truths behind the situation.

The reason that Zodiark was even their last resort was because the world with all of it's aether had been utterly destroyed and the last resource they had was their own bodies. Imagine what they might have been able to do with warning and their full sources of aether available for a shield? Venat already knew that dynamis was weak against aether. That's all the scholars of that age needed to know to form a plan. Almost entirely likely that Zodiark would never have had to become a last ditch reality and 75% of the planet wouldn't have had to lose their lives. But hey, we'll never know because Venat never bothered sharing and they all died because of it. Cool story.

[Rulakir]

Everyone is acting as if Venat went straight for the "Sunder" option. We are shown she didn't. She begged, pleaded, for them to see that there was no going back. The world was irrevocably changed. She did all she could to get them to see that the, as the one Ancient put it, "perfect paradise" they once had was unobtainable. Zodiark's intervention did save them in the short term, but in the long term, there would be an endless, repeated cycle of sacrifice and conflict. The adherents of Zodiark made it clear that they would do whatever it took to restore the old world, up to and including the murder of countless new lives. Everyone who puts the Ancients on a pedestal seem to forget that.

We're shown one cutscene, from her point of view, of Ancient strawmen. The entirety of it was inconsistent with lore so, no, it didn't show us anything but how Venat viewed herself and her people, which spoke volumes.

Additionally, Ishikawa wrote the NieR crossover in which it's said Emet's "paradise" was Azem & Hyth, so "paradise" is a blanket term that meant different things to different people. Here, because it's Venat's POV and because they're strawmen, it takes on the worst possible meaning.

Also, according to the narrative, conflict would've been good for them. The Plenty is a world that exists after eliminating all strife and that was their vision of the end of the Ancients. It's just one more thing that's thematically inconsistent in EW. Perfection is bad, but not being perfect is also bad. They set up the Ancients so that there was no possible way for them to win and then we're supposed to be okay with their fate because it might've/could've been worse based on these outcomes the writers told us we should have without doing the necessary work for us to arrive at those conclusions.

Lastly, as has been mentioned numerous times, there's no indication there would've been further sacrifices after the 3rd which was always a red herring inconsequential to Venat's decision. Whatever was sacrificed in the 3rd would have been a drop in the ocean of the endless cycle of death Venat ushered into the world as well. Additionally, as one person put it, "sundered Etheirys is a purgatory of incomplete beings having their souls scrubbed upon death and reborn into new beings ad infinitum without their input or conscious choice in the matter". This was a cruel and unnecessary fate and Venat is no hero for it.

[Avidria]

Snip

I definitely don't see the WoL this way at all, especially after we spent the entirety of Shadowbringers trying to prevent the Ascians from effectively doing exactly that - sacrificing everyone we know and love to restore Ancient civilization. Why would they sacrifice one civilization to save another when they've spent so long trying to prevent exactly that?

What is interesting here actually is that what you describe is essentially what G'raha did, but I've seen him decried for it more than once on these forums (not necessarily by you, but in general). He effectively sacrificed a dying world to save a "better" one, where his hero and friends are still alive, and get a second chance. WoL would need to make the same choice to save the Ancients, only they'd be doing it knowing all of their friends are actually still alive and do actually have a chance to be saved, and they'd be trading that for a bunch of people they don't know closely and likely can't fit in with anything close to easily because they're so vastly different in experience, worldview, and abilities. And also OG Azem is still alive back then, too.

WoL knows they used to be Azem, but they are not Azem, and nothing I've seen suggests they remember being Azem to any significant extent. They have no current personal connection to these people other than the encounters they've had with their future selves and the few hours/days/whatever we interacted with them in the past. From their perspective, that's a trade of life for life, and they would be making that choice on behalf of an entire world (and then some, considering all of the shards). Which is... not far off of what Venat is being decried for too. Making the choice to give up on one world for the sake of a maybe brighter future in a different one.

I mean, I'm not gonna be out here singing praises for the story - it's an MMO story, and the bar for those is low, and the bar for a decent time travel story is darn near subterranean. This is definitely one of the better ones I've played, in general, but it definitely still has flaws. But also... sometimes characters make stupid choices based on incomplete or incorrect information or assumptions. There are gaps in the story, but there's also plenty of room for people to just... be irrational and make weird decisions. They are just people after all, Ancient or otherwise.

[Slatersev]

No matter how much life they planned to sacrifice to Zodiark it cannot compare to the uncountable billions killed by Venat through the sundering, shortening of lifespans, loss of ability to fight hunger, disease, etc. She created 14 hells where the people born into it did not even realized how damned they were.

A big part of what makes the Shards "hell" is down to Ascian actions post sundering. Garlemald, Allag, the Void, the Sin Eaters. All came directly from Ascian actions. Same with the calamities.

People keep comparing the worlds or morality of the two groups without bothering to acknowledge that the state of the Shards has been fucked with by Ascians sense the start. We have quite literally no idea what the Shards or Sundered would be like in a world where they were left alone because the Ascians were actively making things worse for everybody the whole time.

Its literally impossible to compare the base state of the World or Unsundered vs Sundered to each other because the latter was being actively fucked with from day 1.

[redheadturk]

A big part of what makes the Shards "hell" is down to Ascian actions post sundering. Garlemald, Allag, the Void, the Sin Eaters. All came directly from Ascian actions. Same with the calamities.

People keep comparing the worlds or morality of the two groups without bothering to acknowledge that the state of the Shards has been fucked with by Ascians sense the start. We have quite literally no idea what the Shards or Sundered would be like in a world where they were left alone because the Ascians were actively making things worse for everybody the whole time.

Its literally impossible to compare the base state of the World or Unsundered vs Sundered to each other because the latter was being actively fucked with from day 1.

Sundered were good at making it Hell all on their own, they didn't need the Ascians' help with that. Sex trade, murders, land grabs, just to name a few. Oh, and the Dragonsong war is something the Ascians had no hand in as well. Yeah, Sundered man are idiots all on their lonesome, no help needed.