Who knew the 6.15 Omega Quests… (Spoilers)

[EaraGrace]

The actual core of this, beyond the precise mechanics of an exact analogy (where none exists because this is a fantasy situation in a fantasy story), is that "someone is willing to endure injury and pain to protect you, therefore it's acceptable to just leave them in that state of injury and pain, where said injury and pain will probably continue to worsen" is ridiculous and fundamentally self-justifying more than anything else. If you care about that person and have humanity for them, you look for a way to get them out of that situation.

At the cost of innumerable souls that had no agency or choice? How many people would need to be sacrificed to bring them back?

If the (vague and ill-defined) third set of sacrifices is an unacceptable way to go about this, then aid in exploring other alternatives, whether that's searching for another source of aether fuel that's less contentious, formulating some kind of system where everyone takes turn fueling Zodiark in shifts, or - heaven forbid - telling them what you know about the source of the attack so it can be dealt with permanently.

All these solutions are hypotheticals that we have no evidence are possible, but let’s assume you could just gather enough aether another way. Why then, did the Convocation decide to use the souls of the living, if such alternatives exist? Did they just go for the easy option?

What you DON'T do is shrug your shoulders, go welp guess all your loved ones are just doomed to be in anguished purgatory forever, and expect people to just move on with their lives while carrying that knowledge.

When those souls require sacrifices to leave you do have to accept it.

As soon as it became clear that the souls were stuck in a terrible prison, and were intact and retrievable, the entire moral calculus of the Hydaelyn faction's arguments versus Zodiark's completely shifted.

Nothing shifted. The moral question remains do you sacrifice a stranger to bring back your friend. And that’s ignoring the other intentions the Ancients had for Zodiark and what the third sacrifice would have meant.

I guarantee you the story moving on will not put this to rest.

Whatever moral quandaries come up in the future will be forever compared and contrasted to this one by those who have no desire other than to justify calling a Venat a witch.

[Theodric]

Whatever moral quandaries come up in the future will be forever compared and contrasted by those who have no desire other than to justify calling a Venat a witch.

Huh? Last I checked the reasons as to why Venat didn't sit well with various posters has been explained many times already. You're free to agree to disagree, of course, though it strikes me as disingenuous to act as though as if there's some exclusive hang up where Venat is concerned.

[Cleretic]

Huh? Last I checked the reasons as to why Venat didn't sit well with various posters has been explained many times already. You're free to agree to disagree, of course, though it strikes me as disingenuous to act as though as if there's some exclusive hang up where Venat is concerned.

They're saying that whatever comes next, people will be somehow comparing to Venat versus the Convocation in a way that's unfavorable towards Venat. And I agree, that's going to happen somehow; I don't know how, because I don't know what the next story is.

[Theodric]

They're saying that whatever comes next, people will be somehow comparing to Venat versus the Convocation in a way that's unfavorable towards Venat. And I agree, that's going to happen somehow; I don't know how, because I don't know what the next story is.

To what end? Venat is directly or indirectly relevant to many of the current storylines and so she is often brought up on that basis. If the next storyline involves, for example, a bunch of slavers prowling the seas between the three great continents and Meracydia then I don't really see what relevance Venat would have in such a discussion.

[KageTokage]

At the cost of innumerable souls that had no agency or choice? How many people would need to be sacrificed to bring them back?

I'm not sure why I keep seeing claims that sentient lives would be involved with the third round of sacrifices when there's nothing to indicate such aside from a desire to "entrust the future of the star" to them on the part of Venat's faction.

I was expecting to get more context behind that situation, but instead they focused on the ideology behind the action, not the morality.

[KariTheFox]

I'm not sure why I keep seeing claims that sentient lives would be involved with the third round of sacrifices when there's nothing to indicate such aside from a desire to "entrust the future of the star" to them on the part of Venat's faction.

I mean, isn't that pretty hard evidence? Why would there be a debate about entrusting the future of the star to plants and wildlife?

Furthermore, why didn't Emet-Selch mention it, if the original plan was to sacrifice plants and animals? He spent all of Shadowbringers trying to convince the WoL to come over to his side, but never deployed that incredibly powerful argument? Why wouldn't he, if that was the case?

Also - if non-sentient life was fine before, why do the inhabitants of the source have to be sacrificed later? Why wouldn't Emet-Selch say, "after we restore the world and your souls to your unsundered state, and bring Zodiark back, we will begin demanding tributes of farm animals in order to collect enough aether to bring our bretheren back, and then resume our place as benevolent stewards of the star"? He'd probably get way more people to cooperate with him with that.

[Cleretic]

I mean, isn't that pretty hard evidence? Why would there be a debate about entrusting the future of the star to plants and wildlife?

Furthermore, why didn't Emet-Selch mention it, if the original plan was to sacrifice plants and animals? He spent all of Shadowbringers trying to convince the WoL to come over to his side, but never deployed that incredibly powerful argument? Why wouldn't he, if that was the case?

Also - if non-sentient life was fine before, why do the inhabitants of the source have to be sacrificed later? Why wouldn't Emet-Selch say, "after we restore the world and your souls to your unsundered state, and bring Zodiark back, we will begin demanding tributes of farm animals in order to collect enough aether to bring our bretheren back, and then resume our place as benevolent stewards of the star"? He'd probably get way more people to cooperate with him with that.

Yeah, this is very much the thing. For the third sacrifice to be a point too far, that third one needs to be severe either in what they're sacrificing or how much they're sacrificing. If that means 'sentient lives' to you then that's what it means to you, but it could also mean 'sacrifice all non-sentient plants and animals in South America' and that would still be an objectionably huge sacrifice. There's reasons we care about the Amazon rainforest after all, and it's not because the Amazon is sentient.

If the third sacrifice was something on the level of 'let's sacrifice a bunch of cows and that'll do it', then that makes both sides look like fools; it makes Venat and her group look crazy for being mad about what's clearly a much lesser sacrifice, and it makes the Convocation look stupid for not doing that in the first place.

The actual content of the third sacrifice is not important, but what matters is that it's a call worth going 'WHOA HEY HOLD UP HERE'.

[Alleo]

I'm not sure why I keep seeing claims that sentient lives would be involved with the third round of sacrifices when there's nothing to indicate such aside from a desire to "entrust the future of the star" to them on the part of Venat's faction.

I was expecting to get more context behind that situation, but instead they focused on the ideology behind the action, not the morality.

If you dont need that why sacrifice the Ancients in the first place? They could have then just summoned countless of soulless concepts and sacrifice those right? They did not do that in the first round of sacrifices nor in the second one.

I would find it completely ironic if they managed to exchange the souls of the Ancients with mindless beasts only to have Zodiark going out of control.

[Cleretic]

If you dont need that why sacrifice the Ancients in the first place? They could have then just summoned countless of soulless concepts and sacrifice those right? They did not do that in the first round of sacrifices nor in the second one.

I would find it completely ironic if they managed to exchange the souls of the Ancients with mindless beasts only to have Zodiark going out of control.

And this is mostly unrelated, but I want to point out that I just realized that this thought of 'shoving mindless beasts into Zodiark might just make him a mindless beast' isn't unfamiliar to the series--you've just come from a different direction and essentially reinvented Exdeath from FFV. (Which I can't knock, I love Exdeath.)

[KageTokage]

If you dont need that why sacrifice the Ancients in the first place? They could have then just summoned countless of soulless concepts and sacrifice those right? They did not do that in the first round of sacrifices nor in the second one.

I would find it completely ironic if they managed to exchange the souls of the Ancients with mindless beasts only to have Zodiark going out of control.

The Final Days spared no one, least of all the creations of the Ancients who presumably would've been susceptible to the influence of dynamis, with the "keening" described as triggering a change in all life by an Amaurotine.

There may not have even been enough wildlife left to fuel such a monumentally powerful act of creation at that point.

As far as the later sacrifices go, who knows how that might've played out, though I think it would've been nice for them to have offered more solid reasoning for it being "ill-fated" according to the codex. I was honestly expecting the Sundering happened because there was concrete evidence discovered by Venat's faction that something might or would've gone horribly wrong immediately if they had gone through with their plan to offer more sacrifices to Zodiark, mostly due to that 5.2 scene with them having expressed that efforts to turn the Convocation away from making that decision fell on deaf ears.