The Ancients still deserved better, after everything

[Lauront]

That's the question, though. What makes them think they have the right to decide that? The star isn't their creation. It's their home. And it's not a dishonorable thing to want to improve it. But it is a problem to decide that something doesn't have worth to the star just because of their own views. Like you said, natural selection may have made that decision but there also could be benefit in that it would lead to prey creatures that are sharper and more aware so they don't fall victim to those predators. You don't ever see them considering that viewpoint. But it's like the difference between a carefully cultivated garden of flowers and a field of wildflowers. The field of wildflowers isn't any less beautiful just because it developed naturally. Hermes was not perfect, but he was one person at least who was willing to let something natural be natural and see how it would evolve. Maybe others happily cut that growth off at the knees. And all because they had established themselves as the beings who were there to make that decision.

What makes us humans think we have the right to build houses and not live in caves? To eat meat out of a supermarket packet and not obtain it through hunting? To obtain light through electricity and not through fire, or indeed, whenever the sun deigns to show itself? I don't really understand the basis of the question. Concepts of right and wrong at the end of the day are societal constructs that we base our moral systems off for the purposes of peaceful co-existence and prosperity, and there tends to be debate within these confines (although there's some other frameworks one can refer to, but they still refer to mutually agreed upon social ends.) They're not free-floating concepts in the aether to which actions must align in order to be right or wrong. That's how I see it, particularly when there's no divinely ordained order in the setting. So it's not clear to me who, if not they, would simply arrive at this decision or grant them such a right. It's a decision they came to, over time, to exercise their powers in a particular way that they saw as harmonious for the entire star. Does it need more of a justification than that at the end of the day?

They do explicitly consider methods besides creation magicks when it comes to planting stuff, touched upon in the sidequests. The problem with the lykaones was, even using a variety of methods as requested by Hermes to modify behaviour, these beings were still so dangerous that they would decimate any eco-systems they were released into, and it's shown further by how they're able to handily lay waste to another species in Elpis, remarked upon as being formidable prey. Natural selection will take its course with what they release regardless - they just didn't want to put anything that dangerous out there, and Elpis is there to provide a preliminary testing ground for this. That is its entire purpose. To me this is less a case of arrogance, more one of taking an abundance of caution with what they released - and that is another reason I fail to see how "arrogant" as a descriptor makes much sense. Their entire society is orchestrated to ensure responsible use of their powers and it is ultimately a violation of one of these tenets that resulted in an untested Meteion in the first place.